press conference by special adviser on sport for development and peace

Highlighting the progress made during the past week’s United Nations Global Youth Leadership Summit, Adolf Ogi, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, today described sport as an essential low-cost, high-impact instrument for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Referring to specific steps forward during a Headquarters press conference, Mr. Ogi said the Youth Summit had brought sport closer to 400 young leaders from around the world.  In addition, the General Assembly was considering a resolution on sport –- an unmatched medium for the promotion of education, health, development and peace -- as a means to achieve that very goal.  That resolution would be the fifth since 2003, underlining how sport could contribute to tolerance and understanding.

The Secretary-General would be presenting an action plan to encourage Sport for Development and Peace programmes and projects in the next three years, he said.  “I am a mountaineer”, added Mr. Ogi, a former President of Switzerland.  “A mountaineer climbs step-by-step.  As Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, I also try to make progress step-by-step.”

He introduced the comprehensive Report on the International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005, saying it proved how sport had generated much attention, not only for elite athletes, but also for and among communities, schools, Governments, sports organizations, United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations throughout the world.  That attention could, in turn, be directed towards improving public health, building bridges between communities, empowering women and the disabled, and bridging social, religious as well as racial divides.  “Sport is the best school of life”, he continued, noting that it allowed every young girl and boy to learn how to win and lose, how to accept rules and how to integrate.  Solidarity and fair play were also important lessons.

Responding to a question about which sport had emerged as the singularly most important in peace and development, Mr. Ogi cited football, noting that all over the world, the only thing that could take traumatized children out of that state was giving them a ball to play with.

In response to a question about how to help teenagers specifically, the Special Adviser said his goal was to use sport to create a generation that, in the future, would run the world in a better way.

Asked which Member States had contributed to sports programmes and initiatives in developing countries, Mr. Ogi said 122 countries were participating actively.

Emphasizing sport’s potential for promoting peace, he noted that a cricket match between India and Pakistan in December 2004 had pulled the two countries back from the brink of their fourth war.  By 2005, “cricket diplomacy” had proven instrumental in improving relations between those two countries.  In a similar vein, table tennis had sparked the opening of diplomatic relations between China and the United States in the 1970s.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record