In Sep­tem­ber 2015, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly adopt­ed 17 Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) for the pe­ri­od 2015-2030. These goals were es­tab­lished to ad­dress the so­cial, eco­nom­ic, and eco­log­i­cal as­pects of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment with the view of erad­i­cat­ing pover­ty and redi­rect­ing the world’s de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

Ac­cord­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at (2015), three of these SDGs pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for sport to play its part in achiev­ing the 2030 Sus­tain­able 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 risk of heart dis­ease, stroke, di­a­betes, and oth­er non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. Fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, there has been an in­crease in the num­ber of 5K walks and runs, re­sult­ing in par­tic­i­pa­tion from clubs, cor­po­rate or­gan­i­sa­tions, and the gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In ad­di­tion to the ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, par­tic­i­pants al­so reap tem­po­ral so­cial, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and emo­tion­al ben­e­fits. The 19th edi­tion of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sports and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) In­ter­na­tion­al Half Marathon and 5K on Oc­to­ber 26 will pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for both dis­tance and short-dis­tance run­ners and walk­ers to par­tic­i­pate in a World Ath­let­ics-cer­ti­fied race course and reap the oth­er ben­e­fits of­fered.

· Eco­nom­ic im­pact of phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty: A re­port from The Lancet Glob­al Health es­ti­mat­ed that, in 2013, the glob­al eco­nom­ic cost of phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $67.5 bil­lion in health­care costs and lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty (Ding et al., 2016). The costs are a bur­den on health­care and em­ploy­ers due to ab­sen­teeism re­sult­ing from sick leave. It is es­ti­mat­ed that phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty will 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 un­der­es­ti­mates 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 a fun­da­men­tal right in doc­u­ments such as the In­ter­na­tion­al Char­ter of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport. High-qual­i­ty phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion is cru­cial for chil­dren’s phys­i­cal lit­er­a­cy and can al­so lead to 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 sport 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 and those who do not per­form well or en­joy more tra­di­tion­al ap­proach­es.

· Pri­ori­tis­ing holis­tic ed­u­ca­tion: The UN’s tar­gets for SDG 4 ex­pand the con­cept of ed­u­ca­tion, not on­ly fo­cus­ing on school-aged stu­dents or strict de­f­i­n­i­tions of cur­ric­u­la. Im­proved health and well­be­ing – and the recog­ni­tion that phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is im­por­tant with­in that – should be cen­tral to any de­f­i­n­i­tion of holis­tic and in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion. Pro­grams like Harlem RBI (now DREAM) in the US com­bine base­ball with aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port and en­rich­ment, help­ing par­tic­i­pants de­vel­op skills such as team­work, dis­ci­pline, and re­silience —cru­cial for suc­cess in and out of the class­room. https://weare­dream.org/meet-the-dream-grad­u­ate/

SDG 5: Achieve gen­der equal­i­ty and em­pow­er all women and girls

· The role of sport in so­ci­ety: Well-run sports pro­grammes can pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty. How­ev­er, sport 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. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of sport 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 be ef­fec­tive in pro­mot­ing gen­der equal­i­ty, while lo­cal sport pro­grammes can train and em­pow­er women to be­come role mod­els with­in their com­mu­ni­ties.

To ef­fec­tive­ly mea­sure and val­i­date the con­tri­bu­tion of sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty projects to the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs), a strate­gic part­ner­ship is es­sen­tial. The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), and the Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NG­Bs) should col­lab­o­rate with re­searchers from the UWI, St Au­gus­tine, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT). This col­lab­o­ra­tion would en­sure that ro­bust da­ta col­lec­tion and rig­or­ous analy­sis are cen­tral to all project eval­u­a­tions. By in­te­grat­ing aca­d­e­m­ic ex­per­tise, these es­tab­lished uni­ver­si­ties can gen­er­ate cred­i­ble, ev­i­dence-based da­ta, which is cru­cial for max­imis­ing project im­pact, jus­ti­fy­ing fu­ture in­vest­ments, and in­form­ing na­tion­al pol­i­cy on sport for de­vel­op­ment.