ABSTRACT
Sport connects to international development and peace in multiple ways. For example, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) now recognize April 6 – the date of the beginning of the first modern Olympics in 1896 – as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (United Nations 2013). There are a host of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that now use sport to meet international development goals, such as those within the streetfootballworld network that reaches more than 60 countries and 700,000 children (streetfootballworld 2013). And sport, international development and peace have become matters of public policy, illustrated by government support for UK Sport’s International Inspiration program (UK Sport 2013) or the Instituto Nacional de Deportes, Educación Física y Recreación in Cuba that offers fully subsidized scholarships to foreign students in sport and physical education (Huish and Darnell 2011). Overall, the increased number of organizations and stakeholders mobilizing sport towards the goals of development and peace – such as gender empowerment, health promotion, education, poverty reduction and conflict resolution – and the nascent Sport for Development and Peace sector (Giulianotti 2011a), suggest a more concerted effort by policy makers, sports stakeholders and civil society to organize sport in socially and politically beneficial ways.
