Shared Goals: Sport and Business in Partnership
Knowledge bank: The International Business Leaders Forum’s policy paper, ‘Shared Goals: Sport and Business in Partnerships for Development” is produced in partnership with UK Sport’s Worldwide Impact programme and puts the case for business and development organisations to come together through sport, to meet their shared objectives.
POLICY-PAPER: SPORT AND BUSINESS IN PARTNERSHIPS FOR DEVELOPMENT
The International Business Leaders Forum’s policy paper, ‘Shared Goals: Sport and Business in Partnerships for Development” is produced in partnership with UK Sport’s Worldwide Impact programme and puts the case for business and development organisations to come together through sport, to meet their shared objectives. Whilst there has been growing recognition among the development community of the ability of sport to impact upon development issues, there has so far been little recognition of the potential role that business can play, in addition to a philanthropic or marketing-based approach. This represents a missed opportunity to combine business benefits (managing business risks, reputation and opportunities) with development gains (bringing the power and resources of business to benefit development). The paper demonstrates that sport and physical activity not only impact positively upon health, but can also be used as a medium for delivering other development objectives, such as education, inclusion and economic development.
The opening sections of the paper outline the development context and make the case for business engagement in partnerships for development around sport. The paper then looks at partnership practice and considerations for running a sport-based project.
The final section identifies ten different issues which have been effectively tackled through sport and business partnerships.