News article
IOC and French Development Agency place focus on young people
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the French Development Agency (AFD) have collaborated on a range of initiatives that will focus on utilising sport to tackle youth crime in Asia, while advancing youth skills development across Africa.
The two organisations are planning to invest €1m (£850,000/$1.1m) each to launch the programme later this year, which will begin by funding sports and youth crime prevention projects in four countries across Asia. The programme will fund community based sports projects, with training delivered for criminal justice organisations to build their capability to deliver sports and youth crime prevention programmes.
This initiative will also contribute to the objectives set out by the cooperation between the IOC and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Additionally, the AFD plans to invest a further €1m into the Sport, Education and Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa programme, which is an existing two-year initiative launched by the IOC and Laureus Sport for Good to advance youth education and employability through sport across 13 African countries.
This additional investment will help to extend the number of projects from 16 to 25, reaching 12,000 young people. The number of organisations benefiting from technical assistance, training and more will also increase from 30 to 45.
The new collaboration with AFD aligns with the IOC’s Olympism365 strategy, which aims to strengthen the role of sport as an enabler for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In April, the IOC launched the Olympism365 Innovation Hub, which will support sport-based development projects.
Image: Pixabay