The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has adopted a resolution entitled “Sport as an Enabler of Sustainable Development” by consensus of all 193 UN Member States. The Resolution (A/79/L.10) reaffirms the role of sport in promoting sustainable development while recognizing “the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace”. The document encourages Member States to include sports and quality physical education and activity in their sustainable development strategies.
Resolution A/79/L.10 supports the independence and autonomy of sport. It acknowledges the contribution of the Olympic and Paralympic movements in “establishing sport as a unique means for the promotion of peace and development, in particular through the ideal of the Olympic Truce.” The unifying mission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), bringing peoples together in peaceful competition, was also stressed by Thomas Bach, the IOC President, in his address to the 37th plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on November 12. Bach reminded the audience that athletes from the territories of all 206 National Olympic Committees and the IOC Refugee Olympic team competed at the recent Paris 2024 Olympics and lived peacefully together in the Olympic Village.
The IOC President described Paris 2024 as the culmination of a decade of the deepening partnership between the UN and the IOC. The two organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2014 that marked the beginning of unprecedented cooperation. In 2015, sport was recognized as an “important enabler” for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, then in 2020 sport was declared a “global accelerator for peace and development.”
The texts of both Resolution A/79/L.10 and the full speech by the IOC President are available online.
