Sports Development in South Africa

lennon maratu Start Date: Oct 24, 2023 - End Date: Oct 23, 2024
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Leadership/Training Program
  • Professional Development
  • Eastern Cape, South Africa
  • Gauteng, South Africa
  • Northern Cape, South Africa
  • KZN, South Africa
  • Western Cape, South Africa

My Travel Story

by: lennon maratu Start Date: Oct 24, 2023 - End Date: Oct 23, 2024
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Leadership/Training Program
  • Professional Development
INTRODUCTION
Sport for Development (SfD) refers to the use of sport to promote varied outcomes beyond the
playing field and encompasses a range of initiatives seeking to harness the power of sport for social
change. Many actors now view sport as an ideal development tool since it is cost-effective, relatively
easy to implement and has a unique ability to attract at risk youth in deprived settings. The start of
the 21st century saw the incorporation of sport into the mainstream development sector. Sport was
touted as a means to supporting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with the United
Nations (UN) establishing various task forces and passing a number of resolutions (United Nations,
2018). April 6 has been recognised as the ‘International Day of Sport for Development and Peace’
since 2014 while the role of sport in development has been emphasised in the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations,
2015), noting that:
“Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. We recognize the growing
contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and
respect and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and of young people,
individuals and communities as well as to health, education and social inclusion objectives”.
However, despite the rapid growth of the SfD field, there remain serious gaps in our collective
understanding of which initiatives work best, how and why, and whether these can be scaled. Many
SfD actors tend to espouse the positive benefits of sport or SfD programmes. Critical voices tend to
urge against oversimplified notions of sport with a lack of rigorous research, monitoring and
evaluation of SfD work. Therefore, broad, absolute claims made by the SfD movement must be
treated with caution. Sport can have positive micro-impact on individuals but this does not
necessarily lead to greater meso or macro level outcomes (Darnell, 2007; Coalter, 2007; Coakley,
2015; Sugden, 2010). Further, most SfD actors do not challenge the structures and systems that
create and reinforce macro issues (such as poverty and inequality) in the first place (Sanders, 2016;
Hartmann and Kwauk, 2011).
Given the growing presence and increased investment within the SfD sector (including within South
Africa) as well as the continuing concerns around the efficacy and evidence base of this emerging
field, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation in South Africa has commissioned a review to examine
critical factors that impact on the reported efficacy and potential to scale youth-focused SfD
interventions.
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BACKGROUND
The review seeks to identify if there are common critical factors that contribute to an effective SfD
intervention and more broadly, if there are common features of an ‘enabling policy environment’
that can support scaling of the positive impact of SfD programmes. This review compliments similar
Laureus commissioned reviews globally of six cities (including Cape Town) and in the United States.
Sport and Development in South Africa
Sport inequities continue to haunt South Africa, with a range of disparities in terms of equity and
access to sport and recreation, primarily as a result of the legacy of Apartheid. The Sport and
Recreation South Africa (SRSA) White Paper (1995:2) notes: “In the apartheid era more than 30
million South Africans were never taken into serious account when it came to sport and recreation.”
It is thus hardly surprising that many South Africans are unable to exercise their right to play. A BMI
Sport Info Survey (2007) revealed that 66% of adult Whites play sport, as compared to 35% of Blacks,
33% of Coloureds and 47% of Asians. While the number of youth participating outside of school has
increased, the majority of youth (51%) still play sport at school. The Human Sciences Research
Council (HSRC) found that 25% of South Africans play sport, with most people engaging outside
formal sport structures. ‘Exposure to Sport at School’ was cited as the biggest reason among
respondents (33%) for becoming involved in sport. Reasons for non-participation included ‘No
interest’ (24%) and ‘Lack of Facilities and Opportunities’ (SRSA, 2009). The data illustrates the great
sporting divide in South Africa and the importance of providing inclusive access to sport for all,
including within the school system.
Given this background, the South African government has prioritised increasing access to sport and
ensuring it can contribute positively to development outcomes. SRSA, and stakeholders including
civil society and academia, have developed a National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) based on
three pillars: (1) active nation; (2) winning nation and (3) enabling environment (SRSA, 2012). This
plan reflects a commitment to SfD. Objective one ‘an active nation’ is centred on mass participation
or ‘sport for all’, a central tenet of the SfD movement. While objective two is more focused on high
performance, it recognises that a ‘winning nation’ is only possible with mass participation. There is
clearly overlap between the development of sport and sport for development, though they boast
different goals. The last objective an ‘enabling environment’ is central to the state’s role, with the
NSRP (SRSA 2012: 34) identifying 14 strategic goals required to enable an active, winning nation.
In addition to the state, many civil society actors, including non-profit organisations (NPOs), have
developed programmes that seek to harness sport for development in South Africa. Networks such
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as the Sport for Social Change Network (SSCN) and foundations such as Laureus Sport for Good
South Africa seek to coordinate the diverse range of actors that use sport to achieve change.
EVIDENCE AND FINDINGS
The review analysed the efficacy of SfD interventions in South Africa, focusing on five thematic
areas: (a) community development, social cohesion, and peace building; (b) education; (c)
employment; (d) mental health and wellbeing; and e) life on land. The primary research questions
were:
 What is the quality of evidence for SfD interventions in South Africa in relation to the specific
thematic areas?
 Which critical factors impact the efficacy of SfD interventions in South Africa and is there
potential to scale these approaches?
Quality of Evidence
The review showed that for both academic and grey literature in SfD, the quality of methods and
evidence in South Africa was weak and findings should be interpreted with caution. The literature
provided limited insights and evidence into the critical factors impacting the efficacy and scalability
of SfD interventions in South Africa because intervention theories and contextual factors were
inconsistently reported and studied. This makes it difficult to draw any wide-ranging claims from
such studies.
The review complimented the Laureus Sport for Good Sport for Development: The Road to Evidence
report, which included Cape Town as one of six target cities. Articles identified in line with the
inclusion criteria thus included articles related to Cape Town from the global review, as well as new
articles identified within the South Africa review.
The most frequently assessed themes across the studies that met the inclusion criteria were
community development, social cohesion, and peace building and mental health and wellbeing (in
line with the global findings). SfD interventions under these themes were concentrated around HIV
prevention and violence reduction and SfD interventions consistently focused on the acquisition of
knowledge and life skills in their descriptions of how change occurred. There was significantly less
literature and interventions focused on employment and education, and no studies observed related
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to the use of sport in promoting life on land1
, despite the importance of environmental
sustainability.
In addition, literature that met the stringent inclusion criteria was concentrated in urban locations,
with few studies from the rural areas, while studies were far more prevalent in the Western Cape
than other provinces. Lastly, only 1 National intervention and 1 multi-site intervention was
reviewed. While the literature meeting inclusion criteria comprises only a fraction of the total SfD
literature, it is worrying that the most rigorous studies tend to focus predominantly on Cape Town.
Furthermore, a few large SfD organisations (with international donor funding) appeared to dominate
the literature.
Critical Factors
The SfD evidence base in South Africa mainly presents specific intervention outcomes (often only
relevant to a certain organisation, programme or location), making it difficult to identify the critical
factors that may impact these outcomes or the potential to scale these outcomes (if any). However,
the review observed the same existing factors identified through the Sport for Development: The
Road to Evidence report and identified a number of additional critical factors that may impact the
reported efficacy of SfD interventions.
Programmatic factors identified in the Sport for Development: The Road to Evidence report included:
programme climate; relationships; programme design and implementation; programme leadership;
and participant access to opportunities. Additional programmatic factors identified in this review
included: self-efficacy which emerged as a key construct and outcome measure in the SfD literature;
outcome significance and validity, especially the problems associated with self-reported data; and
variances in attention paid to noting and measuring the characteristics of youth (e.g. age; sex;
education level; disability; income).
Contextual Factors identified in the Sport for Development: The Road to Evidence report included a
focus on access, the type of sport, poverty, and pathways for long-term engagement. Additional
programmatic factors identified in this review included priority social issues (e.g. HIV prevention and
violence reduction/anti-social behavior). However, both globally and locally there were few coherent
attempts to detail the way in which the contextual factors may impact intervention efficacy.
Similarly, the role of stakeholder impact on the efficacy of SfD interventions was rarely considered.
However, the review showed that partnerships with research institutions and students provided

1
It must be noted that Life on Land was included as an extra thematic area in South Africa and was not
included in the global and US reviews.
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more detailed analyses of stakeholder and contextual factors in relation to any intervention
outcomes.
While some programmes had expanded or shown the capacity to scale, the potential to scale these
SfD programmes and/or an assessment of the critical factors necessary for scaling these approaches
was rarely examined. The lack of literature on multi-site interventions and national studies, and the
weak quality of evidence, make it difficult to generalize findings and assess the potential to scale
evidence-based interventions. This is exacerbated by the lack of studies that assess cost
effectiveness of SfD interventions. No SfD studies in South Africa that met the inclusion criteria
critically assessed intervention costs, though several global studies demonstrated social return on
investment (SROI) in SfD. This suggests the need for more studies using SROI methods or other costbenefit analyses.
Overall, these findings informed five overarching recommendations for organizations, researchers,
funders, and policy makers that are listed below. The implications for policy are then explored in
detail.
1. Promote Multi-Sector Collaboration to Advance SfD in South Africa;
2. Develop Better Outcomes Measures for Youth-Targeted SfD;
3. Position Individual Behaviour within a Broader Ecosystem;
4. Improve Youth Participation in SfD; and,
5. Coordinate Efforts Among Researchers, Practitioners and Donors to Improve Quality of
Methods in SfD Research.
IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY
The review provides a range of implications and considerations for policy and policy makers.
Firstly, it is clear that the current state of evidence of SfD interventions does not yet provide
sufficient levels of quality or methodological rigor, thus undermining the case for scalable impact.
Therefore policies and investments need to be prioritised to ensure rigour and quality in SfD
research, including the use of appropriate theories and methods, such as high quality (meta)
research and systematic reviews of SfD initiatives rather than stand-alone project evaluations. While
the latter are useful, there is a need to better understand common variables that impact initiatives.
Further, this provides an opportunity to aggregate and compare data at scale, allowing governments
and other actors to better assess the value and viability of investments in sport for development
(versus other priority areas).
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Policy makers need to understand that access to sport (and physical activity / physical education) is
regarded as a universal human right, enshrined by the the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child
(UNICEF, 1959), the International Charter of Physical Education and Sport (UNESCO, 1978, the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1990), the Olympic Charter (Olympic Review,
1998) and the Geneva Conventions (1949), among many other international commitments. This is
further reinforced by the National Sport and Recreation Plan (SRSA, 2012) and the National Sport
and Recreation Act (2007) which seek to promote inclusive access for all to sport, especially those
who have been historically marginalised. Despite these commitments, the right to play is often
referred to as “the forgotten right” (United Nations, 2003) and policymakers need to ensure this is
not the case. Thus while there is a need to ensure higher quality research, this should not
underscore the fact that access to sport is a fundamental human right and should be freely available
to all South Africans.
Given the disparities, there exists an obligation to ensure equity in terms of access to sport facilities,
opportunities and experiences. In this regard, investments need to be prioritised in terms of
ensuring a balance between elite sport (including mega-events) and grassroots sport (including sport
in school and sport for development) that best serves the needs of the public. This requires policy
makers to pay attention to the differences (and complementarities) between the development of
sport and the use of sport for development, including where policies are prioritised and investments
are made.
The majority of data considered in the review was supplied by civil society organisations, with nonprofit organisations prominent, though various national and provincial state departments were
contacted. This reflects the broader SfD field in which programming and research has often been
driven by civil society, including the academic sector. The public sector has supported research and
delivery of interventions but generally has a broader sporting mandate and is less focused on SfD.
This has implications for the governance of the sport and emerging SfD sector, with a consideration
of roles and responsibilities for the public sector, civil society and academic sector needed (Sanders,
2018).
Beyond the Playing Field
It is clear that attempting to isolate the factors or variables that may impact the efficacy of SfD
interventions is a complex and difficult undertaking. This is partly because the levels of evidence and
methods are generally weak, making it difficult to draw broader conclusions. However, in addition, it
is difficult to distinguish the contribution(s) of sport vs. non-sport components in SfD programmes.
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Further, it is clear that one’s ability to access and benefit from sports opportunities is profoundly
affected by other variables such as income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability
and geographic location. Furthermore, even if participation does occur, there remains a further set
of variables that affect whether positive outcomes are achieved or if harm is prevented. And even if
positive outcomes are achieved, there is considerable debate as to how and why these outcomes
were achieved, whether they can be scaled or replicated elsewhere and whether (usually) shortterm outcomes will lead to any form of sustainable impact. This illustrates the complexity in isolating
the role of sport in leading to social change, and in determining the extent of its influence or impact.
This complexity is exacerbated by the diversity of SfD initiatives, as revealed in the review, which
differ considerably in terms of context, programme design and delivery, target audience(s), expected
outcomes and ability to measure and evaluate their work. It is therefore imperative that
policymakers reflect on the importance of context (both in the surrounding environment and
programme itself) as a critical variable that impacts interventions and poses challenges to them
being replicated successfully elsewhere. Yet, despite the challenges that this poses in terms of
identifying common elements, policy makers and others would do well to recognise this diversity as
a strength rather than a limitation, as it demonstrates the potential of sport to be used in a myriad
of ways and in a variety of contexts to contribute to a range of policies and outcomes that go far
beyond the sporting realm.
This means that policymakers and others can consider the use of sport within other policy domains
(e.g. health) and recognise that sport can be embedded as one component of a broader
intervention. While sport can be used as a stand-alone intervention, recognising its ability to
influence other domains and attract youth in a positive manner allows policy makers to connect
sport to other sectors. The role of sport in contributing to (positive) youth development is one
example as is the role of physical activity and sport in tackling non-communicable diseases. Sport
need not be a lone player.
Related to the above, the review provides evidence for the consideration of sport-based approaches
to be included in broader development work. While sport for development is often considered a
stand-alone sector, others would caution against isolating this sector as sport is intentionally used to
contribute to outcomes in other fields. As such, sport may be viewed as a methodology in which to
advance the goals of other fields, including but not limited to, public health, education, youth
development, gender equality and crime prevention. In this light, it is recommended that policy
makers outside sport are engaged as to the value and utility of sport. It is further recommended that
the Kazan Action Plan and the corresponding MINEPS (International Conference of Ministers and
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Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport) VI Policy Follow-Up Framework are
considered as they identify 10 SDGs and 36 targets to which sport initiatives can contribute. It is
worth noting that the South African government were instrumental in these global initiatives and
plans.
CONCLUSION
South Africa encompasses a diverse range of SfD interventions, organisations and intended
outcomes, and offers many promising contributions to positive youth development across the five
thematic areas assessed in this review. However, the overall weak quality of methods and evidence
makes it difficult to determine which thematic areas SfD approaches seem capable of making the
most effective and impactful contributions in the future, and whether this differs across contexts.
Furthermore, it is difficult to identify common factors that impact the efficacy of interventions and
potential for scale.
As such, it is clear that policymakers need to develop a nuanced and holistic understanding of sport
and its potential for development, including recognizing its limitations and complexity as well as its
diversity and huge potential to contribute to an array of development outcomes. Greater investment
in SfD initiatives, especially in relation to improving standards of evidence and methods will be able
to provide a clearer assessment of the (largely untapped) value of sport in South Africa and beyond
  • Eastern Cape, South Africa
  • Gauteng, South Africa
  • Northern Cape, South Africa
  • KZN, South Africa
  • Western Cape, South Africa