Sport and Development: Challenges in a New Arena Frank van Eekeren Introduction In 2005, the United Nations spread

the message sport for development and peace loudly and clearly around the globe. Looking back on the international Year of Sport and Physical Education, it must be said that the UN has achieved its goal. Sport is increasingly becoming accepted both as a goal in itself and as a means to achieve development ends. Many countries from both the North and South have raised the profile of sport in society, and various international, national and local organizations have begun translating this policy into hundreds of projects in the developing world. With hindsight, there has been a remarkable shift. Less than ten years ago I decided to study the importance of sport in the development of poorer countries. At that time, the topic of sport was taboo in developmental cooperation circles. Sport was seen as a luxury and funding sports projects in the Third World was out of the question altogether. There were exceptions of course. A few enterprising organizations and individuals persisted despite (political) resistance and set up their own sports projects, achieving impressive results. They responded to needs expressed by sporting organizations and governments, mostly from Africa. But these initiatives were few and far between. At that time, it was easy to compile an international survey of sport-related initiatives and policy documents. Within just a few months of research, I could call myself an expert in the field. As always, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Today, the situation is dramatically different. During the Magglingen Conference that rounded off the UN year of sport, I concluded that I was unaware of about 90% of the current initiatives. Whether in Russia, Egypt, Tanzania, Hungary, Afghanistan, Iran, Brazil, or Tunisia, new projects are popping up all over the globe. And the involvement of the North has also changed. While Norway, Canada and the Netherlands used to lead the pack, now it is Switzerland and the UN organizations that are playing the most visible role. At the same time, the involvement of the academic community has also grown. Until recently, research into sport was tantamount to academic suicide, but now the small army of interested researchers is growing. Sport has begun to draw academics from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from social sciences, management and governance to kinetics and medicine. This development is also reflected by the list of participants in this conference: Unlocking the Potential of Sport for Youth Wellness and Development. In short, when the organizers of this conference asked me for an introductory overview of the main international trends and milestones in the field of sport and development cooperation, I knew it would not be easy. Nonetheless, it is important to provide such an analysis of the current situation and a forecast of the main challenges ahead. After all, the year 2005 showed us not only how many positive developments have taken place over the years, but also that the issue of sport and development could use some quality control. UN phraseology, and in its wake the words of countless politicians, sound wonderful. However, it often smacks of preaching to the converted,

and preaching a message which is poorly founded as well. After all, is sport always such a useful instrument or goal? Does sport actually make a qualitative difference to those people with whose help and for whose benefit such projects are set up? How much do we really know about the effect of sporting activities under various conditions? Do the organizations involved have sufficient know-how and do they make adequate use of the information available? In short, we lack convincing analyses of the relevance of sport to specific development issues in specific circumstances. I believe that after years of expansion, it is now time for reflection. Without a sound underpinning, the belief in the potential of sport will never be founded on anything more than the common sense of those who are passionate about it. But this seems too weak a basis. In order to improve the quality and effectiveness of future projects and to firmly establish the issue for the years to come, it is necessary to go deeper. This means being willing and able to learn. Increasing the learning capacity of the sector may be the biggest challenge in the years ahead. The question I am trying to answer in this article is this: How can the Sport and Development sector increase its learning capacity and which preconditions must be fulfilled in order to do so? In other words, what are the conditions under which the outcome of the debates to be held during this conference Unlocking the Potential of Sport for Youth Wellness and Development can be applied in practice? In order to answer these questions, I will zoom in on the situation in the Netherlands. For a long time, this country was a pioneer of funding and organizing sports projects in developing countries. The Netherlands was one of the first countries to formulate a sport and development policy, and as early as 1998, various organizations attempted to raise the profile of this issue. The successes and failures of the Dutch approach hold valuable lessons that may be relevant in an international context. In the following case study, I will discuss the formation of a new organizational chain, described as an arena, and the effect it had on the attempt to deepen the new policy theme. The dilemmas, solutions and consequences are analyzed and transposed to the current international context, clarifying the challenges for the future. A Brief History of Sport and Development in the Netherlands Fifty years ago, former IOC chairman Avery Brundage said [s]port is completely free of politics (Cashmore, 1990). Dozens of recent incidents make clear that this statement was naive to say the very least. Sport has become a political instrument, for either selling political ideas or achieving development goals. There are plenty of examples of sport serving as the flagship of a political regime; one need only think of the former DDR and the Soviet Union. But then, there was also the effect of the international sport boycott of South Africa during the Apartheid era. At the same time, millions of people enjoy practicing their favourite sport, whether statesubsidized or not. In 2005, the Dutch cabinet stated that sport was an important tool to rectify the perceived failure to integrate various ethnic groups into Dutch society (Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Sportnota, 2005). Over a decade earlier, the Dutch government had already recognized the importance of sport in the social development of developing countries. In 1993, the then-minister of Development

Cooperation made available funds to rebuild the Zambian football team, which had lost almost all its players in a plane crash in the run-up to the 1994 football World Cup in the USA. The minister acknowledged that good performance by the national team was important to a developing nation. Dutch parliament called the minister to account for this initiative, incidentally. Financing sport from development cooperation funds was not done in those days. By the mid 1990s, more and more Dutch sport organizations were getting involved in projects in developing countries. Organizations such as the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC*NSF) and the Dutch football association (KNVB) ran successful teacher and coach training projects in Africa. There were various private initiatives in response to requests from local governments, sporting organizations and individuals from the South. Sporting organizations and passionate individuals were particularly pioneering on various fronts. And these pioneers increasingly turned to the government for subsidies for their projects. In 1998, this prompted the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Health, Welfare and Sports to commission Utrecht University to organize a symposium on the subject. Dutch stakeholders and international academics debated the value of sport in developing countries. The ministers involved translated the enthusiasm displayed at this symposium into a combined Sport and Development Cooperation memorandum (entitled Cooperation Scores [Samenspel scoort], 1998), which announced structural plans to encourage and support sport in developing countries. The memorandum motivated and brought together Dutch organizations. The government subsidized a Sport and Development program, run by NCDO, an independent administrative body. This organization set up a platform for sport and development organizations to regularly meet and exchange information. NCDO also developed a website (www.sportdevelopment.org) making accessible relevant information about projects, organizations, funding, and so on. In addition, NCDO publishes Supporter, a quarterly about sport in developing countries, which ensures that the issue is brought to the attention of the Dutch population. Although the budget for projects in developing countries remained limited, the new policy document and the Sport and Development program sparked off a number of new large-scale projects in Burkina Faso, Surinam and Kenya. A few Dutch sporting organizations formally incorporated sport and development into their mission and even appointed a specialized employee. The development cooperation organizations proved harder to convince of sports added value, and long steered clear of the debate and the implementation of projects. In the meantime, the issue of sport and development had also made it onto the international agenda. Countries such as Norway and Canada had been very active for years, and Right to Play (formerly: Olympic Aid), headed by erstwhile Olympic speed skating champion Johann Olav Koss, became the largest international NGO for sport and development. The Dutch Foreign Affairs ministry was so impressed by the Right to Play projects, particularly those in refugee camps, that it awarded a large subsidy to this organization. Right to Play, who use popular top sportsmen and women as their ambassadors, also lobby for the sport and development issue internationally. International umbrella organizations such as the IOC and FIFA came to realize that sports could contribute significantly to development, so they formulated their own

policies. Gradually, even the United Nations became interested in the value of sport and set up the Office of Sport for Development and Peace. The increased interest from donor organizations stimulated a rise in requests from the developing countries, and at the same time these requests from the South could be more adequately targeted at specific organizations. In November 2003, the Netherlands specifically NCDO, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) and NOC*NSF organized an international meeting of experts, entitled The Next Step. Here, participants from both the North and the South gathered for the first time to debate the value of sport and to decide what steps to take. Earlier, during the Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Right to Play had organized a round table conference on this theme. The Salt Lake City conference resulted in the founding of a special taskforce on Sports for Peace and Development and the appointment of a special UN ambassador. On a more practical level, UK Sport and Commonwealth Canada organized a donor conference in London and a recipient conference in Johannesburg. The main issue of debate at these conferences was cooperation between North and South. Here, the first steps were taken to formulate a code of conduct for cooperation between Northern and Southern organizations. At the first Magglingen conference in February 2003, many international organizations and governments signed the Magglingen declaration, expressing their commitment to sport and development. Just like its 2005 edition, this conference was organized by the Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Sport for Development and Peace, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SAD) and Federal Office of Sport Magglingen (BASPO). In the meantime, the Dutch political landscape and development cooperation policy changed, decreasing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs involvement in sport. As an issue, sport and international cooperation became marginalized. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport had limited resources and the Sport and Development program by necessity was redirected towards creating support among the Dutch population. State funding of organizations and projects was drastically cut back. Various organizations that over the years had become specialized in sport and development found it necessary to raise alternative funds elsewhere. This decrease in political attention and involvement does not mean that Dutch organizations no longer play a significant role in the field. Many Dutch organizations are still equally active in sports projects in the South. One recent contribution to the (international) development of the Sport and Development theme is a toolkit with Best Practices. This Dutch initiative will be followed up by the Norwegian government. In the UN Year of Sport and Physical Education, a number of organizations campaigned in the Netherlands and contributed to international meetings held in Livingstone (Next Step part II) and Magglingen. These meetings make clear that in an international context, the theme is more alive than ever. The UN has recognized sport as a means to promote education, health, development and peace (UN resolution 58/5), and more recently the European Parliament also passed a resolution about sport and development (P6_TA-PROV(2005)0464). Selection of International Milestones:

December 2005: Magglingen 2005 Declaration Magglingen, Switzerland December 2005: European Parliament Resolution on Sport and Development June 2005: February 2005: The Next Step 2005 Livingstone, Zambia Unicef Workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation NY, USA

September 2004: Council of Europe: The Contribution of Sport to Intercultural Dialogue Istanbul, Turkey August 2004: Roundtable Forum: Harnessing the Power of Sport for Development and Peace Athens, Greece November 2003: UN Resolution 58/5

November 2003: The Next Step: 'International Expert Meeting on Development In and Through Sport' Amsterdam, The Netherlands February 2003: Declaration and Recommendations: Magglingen Conference on Sport & Development Magglingen, Switzerland May 2003: April 2003: March 2003: February 2002: International Donor Meeting London, UK International Recipient Meeting Johannesburg, South Africa UN Task Force Report Round Table Conference - Salt Lake City, USA

Selection of International Actors and Networks International Platform on Sport and Development www.sportanddev.org Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC)/ Swiss Academy for Development (SAD) Platform on Sport and Development Cooperation www.sportdevelopment.org/ www.toolkitsportdevelopment.org NCDO Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) Netherlands Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sport (NOC*NSF) UN Programs and Funds www.un.org/themes/sport UN Office Sport for Development and Peace UNHCR UNICEF UNDP 5

UNEP Selection of Other International Actors Australian Sports Commission Sport Canada Commonwealth Games Canada CGC ICSSPE ICSA International Labour Office (ILO) International Olympic Committee (IOC) International Paralympic Committee (IPC) FIFA FK Norway Kicking Aids Out KNVB MYSA National Sports Council Zambia Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NIF) Right to Play Sport sans frontiers streetfootballworld South African Sports Commission SCORE UEFA UK Sport Looking back on the last decade, it is clear that the Dutch government has both nationally and internationally influenced the development of this policy area. In the Netherlands, more organizations are now involved in the issue than there were ten years ago. The theme is nationally better known and more projects and partnerships have been launched. The field has been succesfully broadened. In terms of content, important steps have also been taken. Various organizations have combined their expertise and the organizations involved have become aware that delivering quality requires a professional approach. Yet, in terms of content and depth, themes such as gender, HIV/AIDS, coping with trauma, and monitoring and evaluation have only been touched upon. Furthermore, cross-fertilization with other, related sectors is still in its infancy. In the implementation of their projects, the organizations involved keep running up against the same barriers, which limits their ability to focus on the further, qualitative, development of their work. How can we explain this limited learning capacity of the sector? A New Arena The central question posed by this article is how to enlarge the learning capacity of organizations (directly) involved in a new arena. Learning implies a change of behaviour, or as Swieringa and Wierdsma (2002) call it, competence. In their view the learning organization is an organization that can perpetually improve, innovate 6

and develop itself. That is learning capacity. To increase this capacity, actors must not focus on what happens but on interactions. Learning takes place in a complex environment. Complexity translates onto more than one level (Van der Winden, 2004): The international political context, including the balance of power (interests); The balance (of power) in an aid arena (institutional context); Denotation: different actors with different interpretations; Representation. The short overview I have provided, the history of the Sport and Development policy area from a Dutch perspective, may also be described as the birth of a new aid arena. My point of departure here is that the creation of a new policy arena entails the creation of a new order. Ordering means assigning social positions and therefore rights and obligations to groups and individuals. In order to visualize such an ordering process and its consequences more clearly, the new policy area can be seen as an arena in which each actor tries to impose its own position, rights and obligations onto others. They try to achieve this partly through cooperation, and partly through competition. (De Ruijter, 1998). According to De Ruijter (1998), one characteristic of an arena is that it is a relatively well-demarcated battlefield on which different, and by definition unequal, partners enter into combat. The nature and structure of the fight is more or less predetermined (negotiated order). The actors and spectators in the arena occupy different positions and possess different weapons to wield as they strive to reach their goals. For a long time, the content of the sport and development projects supported by Dutch organizations was determined from a sport development perspective. Requests from the South usually landed on the desks of sporting organizations by way of existing international networks. These requests often dealt with the physical and organizational infrastructure of sports. Dutch organizations and individuals would honour these requests partly out of social consideration and partly out of self-interest. What Dutch organizations had to offer was very much coloured by their experiences in The Netherlands and insufficiently adapted to the local context (Boessenkool and Van Eekeren, 2000). Cooperation with development organizations was scarce; general development goals usually played second fiddle to the development of the sport. When the Dutch government got involved and organizations started trying to lay claim to subsidies, the sport and development issue in the Netherlands became more politicized. The goals shifted away from sport and development and towards the official development cooperation policy. Sport development was no longer seen as a goal in itself, but mainly as a tool to achieve social goals. This became apparent at the first Dutch symposium on the issue. There, debates were held on the significance of sport in the contexts of coping with trauma, marginalized groups, and gender, all subjects that played an important role in Dutch development cooperation policy at that time. From that moment on, the new arena was born. At first, the Dutch organizations involved wanted to know who in their own country was active in sports projects in the 7

South. Their idea was to form a network in which the Dutch actors could meet, exchange information and coordinate their activities. The wide diversity of actors, ranging from enthusiastic individuals to professional organizations, had to be better streamlined. Furthermore, the government wished to take part, which meant the arena was further formalized and the rules of the game were laid down for the first time. The ministries of Health, Welfare and Sport and Development Cooperation were tentatively finding their feet in the arena. Since opportunities to steer were limited, the government was unable to position itself as the main games master. Instead, the government-subsidized NCDO was given the role of director and promoter of content in the arena. This made the government somewhat less visible to the other actors in the arena, but it remained active in the background. In the early stages, the actors in the arena were fuelled by commitment and enthusiasm. At that time, it was a small group of passionate people who finally found a platform for their efforts. These actors had a common goal: to put the issue of sport and development cooperation on the political agenda, thereby securing better financial means to achieve their content goals. It seemed desirable to involve the development cooperation sector in the arena. The sectors expertise and experience, and its organizational and financial resources were seen as key to further development of the issue. However, it turned out to be difficult to convince the development cooperation sector of the value of sport. For a long time, the development organizations appeared to have little or no interest in actively contributing to the arena. Around the year 2000, more funding became available. At the same time, the interests of the actors in the arena began to diverge. Organizations wishing to lay claim to subsidies tended to share less information with each other. The strategy of various actors shifted from cooperation to competition. Moreover, the creation of funds, and their attending criteria and procedures, led to further formalization. Actors had to comply with all kinds of accountability mechanisms required by the government. A great deal of time and attention was spent on drafting project proposals and writing evaluation reports. The creation of funds created more opportunities to implement projects and further professionalize the actors, but it also meant the arena lost some of its cohesion and creativity. One remarkable development is that since 2000, debates about content within the arena have been waning, while organizations from the South have still only been heard through their Dutch counterparts. The increased government influence has led the actors in the arena to focus primarily on Dutch desires and requirements. The Sport and Development program is also geared towards this; it aims to inform the Dutch partners and to increase the support for sport and development cooperation among the Dutch public. The latter is a specific goal set by the NCDO, the most central actor in the arena. Figure 1: Sport and Development Arena Politics (national/international) Public opinion / support

Donor (government) lobby Inform Intermediary Organization support / dialogue Recipient (government/ NGO/ CSO) Target group The arena is a dynamic system. Some organizations, like the Dutch football association, give the sport and development issue a prominent place in their own organization. The associatons increased capacity and quality makes it an important partner. At the same time, some organizations, such as Right to Play Netherlands and Unicef Netherlands, have a fluctuating bond with the arena. They are relatively independent organizations with their own financial resources and know-how. These organizations do not always clearly see what the arena has to offer them. Smaller organizations, which are more dependent on government funding, must play along in the arena, but to them the rules of the game are often too obscure. Various actors in the arena have formed partnerships. These parties usually join forces for the purpose of setting up and implementing projects. In some cases, these partnerships are instigated by the government or NCDO, while in other cases actors start to cooperate because they know each other from the arena and believe they can create added value by combining their competences and capacities. At the same time, however, links with actors from outside the arena remain tentative. This is why the dialogue with Southern partners and other policy areas, such as education, science, health care, and so on, has not yet got off the ground. What is worse, the pressure of diminishing financial means and increasing competition threatens to create separate sport and development industries, each more interested in conserving the status quo than in developing further. Roughly speaking, the actors can now be divided into two groups, each with its own way of doing battle. The first group has opted to extract itself from government funding and join different networks to look for alternative funding. To these actors, going more in-depth might be interesting, but it is not strictly necessary. A joint effort to explore the issue more deeply in relation to specific themes can hardly be called crucial. The second group has opted to maintain close links with the government, and gears its policies and organizations to dovetail with government policy. This group forms the more stable section of the arena. Private initiative and entrepreneurial spirit seem to

be waning in this section because most actors focus on the same resources. Government influence, and therefore indirect political clout, has largely set the agenda in terms of content. Furthermore, the main focus has been on development cooperation organizations, and this has pulled the sector into the vortex of development issues. One example is the rising number of sports projects linked to HIV/AIDS awareness. This is a hot issue in development cooperation circles and the actors in Sport and Development have jumped on the bandwagon. The message of the (sporting) organizations is that sport makes HIV/AIDS education simpler. This assumption is widely accepted, but a debate on the relevance of such projects might still be useful: In which circumstances is HIV/AIDS education important, in which circumstances is it appropriate to use sport as a tool and in which circumstances would other tools better serve the purpose? For the time being, it seems not to be in the actors interests to pose and answer such critical questions. Most actors in the arena have invested a relatively large amount of energy in intervening in the government and development cooperation arenas, leading to a lack of solid identity. Debates on content, when these have taken place at all, have focussed mostly on how (sporting) organizations can work on logical frameworks and on proving the value of sport to the Millennium Development Goals. In so doing, they have gone along with the discourse of the development and government sectors, where debates, studies and evaluations are not primarily aimed at learning, but at accounting and convincing. In addition, pressure from the government and development cooperation sectors has led many to see sport mainly as a tool, while sports intrinsic value is mentioned less and less. It is clear that the new arena offers new broadening potential, in the form of agendasetting and a neutral exchange of information. At the same time, the different actors specific interests have become so widely divergent that a joint attempt to go deeper in terms of content seems out of the question. Actors are interested in studies that prove the value of sport beyond any doubt. That is in everyones interest. There is much less eye for the importance of more specific or more critical studies into the relevance of sport in different contexts. The small number of academics who are part of the arena have proven unable to raise funds for independent research. Challenges for the International Arena My description of the Dutch arena has exposed the factors underlying the Dutch Sport and Development sectors learning (dis)ability. My decision to use the concept of the arena in this article reflects a view of society as a conflict zone. After all, society is interpreted in terms of warring parties trying to fulfil their (conflicting) needs. From this angle, society is not primarily a market where free and equal participants can trade ideas, goods and services; instead, it is primarily a battlefield (De Ruijter, 1998). I find this a refreshing view, particularly when applied to (Sport and) Development Cooperation. Partnerships, sharing information and comparing notes are all hackneyed, hollow phrases in this field. It is assumed that everyone is aligned in support of the same noble cause. The actors involved seem genuinely amazed when it turns out the desired cooperation and in-depth exploration fail to emerge on cue. And when it is revealed that the facade of idealism actually also conceals (organizational) self-interest.

10

We could label this undesirable or even unethical, particularly because we are dealing with development cooperation, but it would be more helpful to look the truth straight in the eye. Many organizations pay lip service to concepts such as in-depth studies, learning and improving, but an analysis using the arena model shows that various factors hamper the sectors ability to learn. Within the arena, a common goal such as agenda-setting is relatively simple to achieve because this leads to an increase in funding, which benefits everyone involved. Access to other resources, particularly knowledge, is a different matter. This touches upon the actors positions of power and tends to elicit a competitive strategy. This limits the learning capacity in the arena. The international arena which is currently forming shows some similarities to the Dutch arena. The UN organizations, large international sporting organizations and governments from the North seem destined to become the main actors to whom most others will conform. The main actors have access to the greatest financial resources as well as to knowledge, experience and networks. They are well-organized and professionalized. The sector can benefit from these strong partners, whose pioneering role will allow them to raise the profile of the issue. At the same time, there are certain dangers attached to such a static arena. The main actors (political) agendas will figure largely and make the policy area vulnerable. Political choices may have great consequences for the dependent organizations in the arena, while these may be unable to significantly affect these decisions. In particular the voice of the Southern nations, the recipients, is in danger of being drowned out. Their position in the arena is vulnerable because of their limited access to funding and information resources. Such a situation will compromise the arenas learning ability. The knowledge, needs and experience of organizations from the South are crucial to learn what the value of sport is in specific circumstances. Failure to strengthen the position of such organizations in the arena (capacity building) will lead to the loss of a great deal of relevant information. The content and issues will be determined by the large players desires, procedures and systems rather than the desires and needs of the target group. In this situation, going deeper will be more about creating unity (in approach, methodology and tools) than about the diversity and complexity of the context in which the projects take place. Dutch history can teach us that it is important to create a vital arena. If the actors in the international arena truly want to deepen the field, they must decrease their dependence on a few, central sources of power. Knowledge is one of the key resources. The actors in the arena should not only be looking for common interests but also be willing to acknowledge each others specific interests. Organizations and networks own identities may ensure more independence. Knowledge should be sought outside ones own arena as well. Experts should be welcomed from the fields of pedagogy, social science, management consultancy, and medicine, but most of all from the target group itself. All these people can provide valuable contributions to the content development of the policy area. More knowledge about the effectiveness of sport in developing societies may spark off a dialogue with the powerful, international donors about their approach and the quality of the programs and projects. It will be the donors task to facilitate and

11

encourage learning. The donors monitoring and evaluation practices should be aimed not only at accountability, but also at gathering information that will allow them to learn. Donors should pay attention not only to quantifiable effects, but also to the process taking place in the society where their projects are implemented. The actors in the arena can also make themselves more independent by finding alternative financial resources. The private sector has so far barely been tapped. Their financial support, but also their expertise, may help ensure that the arena will become more open, balanced and vital. This will allow actors to start exploring the various policy issues in greater depth, regardless of political agendas, thereby strengthening their position in the arena. The main lesson we can learn from Dutch history is that a strong key player, in this case the government, may prove an important facilitator, but may also compromise the vitality of the arena. The initial enthusiasm and the pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit are jeopardized, just like the input from recipients. This thought process is nothing new. A multinational such as Microsoft is well aware of the importance of a vital organization. They are trying to achieve this through programs aimed at sustain[ing] the companys start-up mentality (Florida, 2002). Without its original inspiration and enthusiasm, the policy area of Sport and Development is in danger of becoming embedded in political and bureaucratic systems which impede independent and creative thought. In Conclusion Sport will never be free of political influence in the way that Avery Brundage would have had us believe fifty years ago. But if the issue of sport and development is to be sustainable, than a vital arena is crucial. This must be an arena in which learning is desirable, possible and even necessary. But this can only be achieved if the similarities and differences between the various actors and their specific interests are identified beforehand, and the start-up mentality is sustained. To increase learning capacity, a heavily centralized and directed arena is undesirable. The creation of an international society for sport and development should leave room for the individual organizations diversity and specificity. Loosely linked systems or networks, which may differ in composition and methodology depending on the issue and the interests involved, offer the best guarantee for a learning environment. The existing (internet) platforms and international conferences offer opportunities for meetings and exchanges of information which may engender new alliances. Such alliances offer the best opportunities for well-directed learning and in-depth exploration. Such a vital arena would provide opportunities to independently study the relevance of sport to development, from different perspectives, free of political and bureaucratic influence. This is the only way to ensure a sustainable sector. About the author: Frank van Eekeren is a consultant and researcher at the Utrecht School of Governance (USG), Utrecht University, The Netherlands. References

12

Boessenkool, J. and F. van Eekeren, The nature of sport and international cooperative development. In: A. Knoppers (ed.), The Construction of Meaning in Sport Organizations: Management of Diversity. Maastricht: Shaker Publishing (2000) Cashmore, E., Making Sense of Sport. London: Routledge (1990) Florida, R., The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books: New York (2002) Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS), Tijd voor sport. Bewegen, meedoen, presteren.[Time for Sport: Exercise, Participate, Perform.] The Hague: SDU ( 2005) Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS), Sport en ontwikkeling: samenspel scoort. [Sport and Development: Cooperation Scores.] The Hague: SDU (1998) Ruijter, A. de, Invoegen en uitsluiten; de samenleving als arena [Inclusion and exclusion; society as arena]. In: C. Geuijen (ed.), Multiculturalisme [Multiculturalism]. Utrecht: Lemma (1998) Wierdsma A. and J. Swieringa , Lerend organiseren, Als meer van hetzelfde niet helpt . [Learning from Organizing: When More of the Same No Longer Works.]Groningen: Stenfert Kroese (2002) Winden, B. van de, Do Not Beat a Drum With an Axe: Responsive Evaluation Methodology in an International Context. Utrecht: Utrecht University (2004)

13