In Sep­tem­ber 2015, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly adopt­ed 17 Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) for 2015–2030. These goals ad­dress the so­cial, eco­nom­ic, and eco­log­i­cal as­pects of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment to erad­i­cate pover­ty and redi­rect the world's de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

Ac­cord­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at (2015), three of these SGDs pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for sport to play its part in achiev­ing the 2030 de­vel­op­ment agen­da. https://www.sportand­dev.org/en/learn-more/sport-and-sus­tain­able-de­vel­op­ment-goals/what-sports-role-ad­dress­ing-sus­tain­able

SDG 3: En­sure Healthy Lives and Pro­mote Well­be­ing for All, at All Ages

·Health ben­e­fits of sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty: lev­els of phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty are ris­ing world­wide, and, with 3.2 mil­lion deaths per year, it is the fourth lead­ing risk fac­tor for glob­al mor­tal­i­ty. Par­tic­i­pa­tion in sports re­duces the risks of heart dis­ease, stroke, di­a­betes, and oth­er non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. Eco­nom­ic im­pact of phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty: The costs are a health­care bur­den to em­ploy­ers due to sick leave. Phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty is es­ti­mat­ed to cost In­dia US$7.5 bil­lion and the UK US$26 bil­lion by 2030 if ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures are not tak­en. Such cal­cu­la­tions are like­ly to be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed as they fo­cus main­ly on chron­ic dis­eases and don't in­clude, for ex­am­ple, men­tal health.

SDG 4: En­sure in­clu­sive and eq­ui­table qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion and pro­mote life­long learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for all

· The right to par­tic­i­pate in qual­i­ty sport, phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion: Sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are en­shrined as fun­da­men­tal rights in doc­u­ments such as the In­ter­na­tion­al Char­ter of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport. High-qual­i­ty phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion is es­sen­tial to chil­dren's phys­i­cal lit­er­a­cy and can cre­ate oth­er learn­ing out­comes.

· Im­proved ed­u­ca­tion out­comes: Phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is com­pul­so­ry in schools in 97% of coun­tries but has a low­er sta­tus than oth­er sub­jects in more than half of them. This con­tra­dicts re­search show­ing that well-run sports ac­tiv­i­ties and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion have a pos­i­tive im­pact on learn­ers, in­clud­ing im­proved aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance.

· En­gag­ing dis­en­fran­chised learn­ers: Sport projects can pro­vide an ed­u­ca­tion for peo­ple with­out ac­cess to for­mal ed­u­ca­tion, those who do not per­form well, and those who en­joy more tra­di­tion­al ap­proach­es.

· Pri­ori­tis­ing holis­tic ed­u­ca­tion: The UN's tar­gets for SDG 4 ex­pand the con­cept of ed­u­ca­tion, not on­ly fo­cussing on school-aged stu­dents or strict cur­ricu­lum de­f­i­n­i­tions. Im­proved health and well­be­ing—and the recog­ni­tion that phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is es­sen­tial with­in that—should be cen­tral to any de­f­i­n­i­tion of holis­tic and in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion.

SDG 5: Achieve Gen­der Equal­i­ty and Em­pow­er All Women and Girls

· The role of sport in so­ci­ety: Well-run sports pro­grams can pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty. How­ev­er, sports can al­so re­in­force neg­a­tive stereo­types; less than 20 per­cent of po­si­tions on sports gov­ern­ing bod­ies are filled by women, pro­fes­sion­al fe­male ath­letes are paid less than men, and women's sport gets less glob­al me­dia cov­er­age. Ad­dress­ing these is­sues would have a pos­i­tive im­pact on SDG 5.

· Sport as a safe space to ad­dress gen­der is­sues: En­gag­ing women and girls in sports projects can ad­dress is­sues such as sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health, gen­der-based vi­o­lence, and fe­male lead­er­ship. Sport's pop­u­lar­i­ty among men and boys can al­so make it an ef­fec­tive way to en­gage them on such top­ics.

· Pro­mot­ing fe­male lead­er­ship: high-lev­el lead­ers and role mod­els with a glob­al reach can ef­fec­tive­ly pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty, while lo­cal sport pro­grams can train and em­pow­er women to be­come role mod­els with­in their com­mu­ni­ties.

The Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, SporTT, Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), and Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NG­Bs) must work with re­searchers to en­sure that ro­bust da­ta analy­sis is used to eval­u­ate the im­pact of sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty projects on achiev­ing the SDGs.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.