"If we run through the national actions plans for the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, we find that very few countries mention sport and its organisations as important stakeholders, so this European campaign did not yet succeed in the field of sport," said ISCA's Kirkeby.
He further highlighted the fact that current activities to promote intercultural dialogue through sport in Europe "are being planned and implemented at local level without an overall strategy, policy and support system".
While local initiatives are often "strong because they reach people where they are – in the local communities", they are also "vulnerable", because they mostly rely on personal commitment and voluntary initiatives, he pointed out. He therefore called for such projects to be supported by "long-term national level programmes and back-up systems". According to him, this would further strengthen the commitment of civil society organisations and sports associations and "ensure more sustainable initiatives, better results, inspiration and documentation".
Specific public sector support for the use of sport as tool for intercultural dialogue and social development is all the more necessary because there is "a limit to how many of society's challenges civil society could take on its shoulders," Kirkeby noted. He explains that while sport organisations are already very much engaged in civil society topics and challenges, the partnership with the public must be more "equal".
If civil society is expected to help promote public health for example, then the public health sector should also support sport organisations in combating inactivity and obesity, he insisted. The same applies to integration policies, he noted, saying: "Heads of state can integrate countries into the European Union, but it takes civil society to integrate citizens into the EU."
To get public authorities and other stakeholders on board, "solid documentation and evaluation" on the concrete effects and outcomes of sports activities and projects is needed, Kirkeby argued. Currently, "most interventions and outcomes are described through 'good practices' more than evidence-based evaluation," he said.
Regarding the EU's White Paper on Sport and the upcoming European Sport Programme, Kirkeby welcomed the focus given to the societal role of sport, but lamented the fact that much of the support for sports action comes from other EU programmes. "This is about 'passing the ball to somebody else', and we know from experience that it is unfortunately very difficult to obtain support from non-sport dedicated EU programmes. Only the youth programmes have so far managed to benefit initiatives promoted by civil society organisations from the sport sector," he said.
