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lateral organisations, the UN system, armed forces, development agencies, the civil and the private sector, research institutions and the media to actively use and promote sport for de- velopment and peace building in their respec- tive fields, (Magglingen Call to Action 2005). In the same year, Walter Fust, Director- General for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation wrote, “Where other means have failed, sport has proven to be effective in building bridges to overcome conflicts and cultural barriers or to improve the integration of minorities and marginalised groups.” (SDC 2005, 4). Qualter Berna, based on his practical ex- perience with the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF), agrees: ‘Sport is providing children affected by conflict and former child soldiers with a positive outlet and a sense of belonging. With families dispersed by conflict or disaster, children are reintegrating back into their communities and sports are the means to provide them with a safe, family- like, team environment’. Recognising the im- portance of sport in this regard, more than eighty UNICEF offices have developed part- nerships with national sport associations in their respective countries to offer programmes to children and youth. “(Qualter Berna 2006). In April 2006, the International Conference on Sport and Development at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town reiterated that call with Adolf Ogi, Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General on Sport for Development

and Peace, stating: “Sport, with its joys and triumphs, its pains and defeats, its emotions and challenges, is an unrivalled medium for the promotion of education, health, develop- ment and peace. Sport helps us demonstrate, in our pursuit of the betterment of humanity, that there is more that unites than divides us”. (Cape Town April 10 th , 2006). Three years later his successor, Willi Lemke, maintains: “Sport has a crucial role to play in the efforts of the United Nations to im- prove the lives of people around the world. Sport builds bridges between individuals and across communities, providing a fertile ground for sowing the seeds of development and peace (Lemke, October 2009, http://english.people. com.cn/90001/90777/90856/6789246.html). With his support and under his guidance then, in 2011, at the United Nation’s Sport for Devel- opment and Peace Conference, Geneva, the In- ternational Working Group (IWG) for Sport and Peace’s Chair was formally elected. Sport’s potential in promoting peace in con- flict situations is definitely an area that has rapidly gained attention in recent years with a significant increase in articles, book chapters and books being published on the topic, re- flecting the research done in the field (e.g. Schinke & Hanrahan eds. in press; Georgiadis & Syrigos, 2009; Keim 2009; Kidd 2008; Ho- glund & Sunberg, 2008; Keim 2008; Cwik 2007; van der Merwe 2006; Kvalsund 2005; Keim 2003). These publications and others provide a valuable basis and an attempt to document

the fact that the mechanism underlying these processes of inter-linkage between sport and peace building are still relatively unexplored (Hoglund & Sunberg, 2008) and need further and more coordinated research. A recent publication was added by the UN in 2011: “Achieving the Objectives of the United Nations through Sport”, a case for sport published for its invaluable contribution to development and peace (UNOSDP 2011) which stresses the value of sport for peace- building efforts as it “permits encounters on neutral territory and in an environment where aggression can be controlled, directed and regulated and hence facilitates rapproche- ment and reconciliation between opposing parties. Sport can be an effective delivery mechanism for post-conflict education and counselling programmes as part of an inte- grated approach to healing and reconciliation, particularly for child-soldiers, refugees and internally displaced persons.” (ibid, 11) The above shows that “sport has been in- creasingly recognized as an important vehicle in assisting the United Nations to achieve their objectives, in particular the Millennium Development Goals: by including sport in de- velopment and peace programmes in a more systematic way, the United Nations can make full use of this cost-efficient tool to help us create a better world” (Ban Ki-moon 2009). The Practical Impact of Sport In what way has sport been proven to have an impact on grassroots level?

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