International Development

UK Sport works with partners to provide access to sport for young people in developing countries.

UK Sport works in partnership with organisations and agencies across the world to help assist developing countries with the creation of their own sporting systems, promote the power of sport as a tool for human and social development, form and maintain strategic partnerships with international partners, and ensure the UK is kept abreast of sporting development worldwide.

The International Development Team works through the following strands:

Strategic Development Partnerships

Though our International Development Assistance Programme (IDAP) we aim to develop a small number of long-term (3-5 year) strategic partners at any one time, with UK based and International NGOs to further the use of sport as a tool for human and social development, primarily in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.  These partnerships will be based around the following development area outcomes, which relate to IDAP’s priority themes:

• Coach education, training and deployment 
• Youth development and leadership 
• Disability sport and organisational capacity building 
• Advocacy and awareness raising

The partnerships will be powerful exemplars of global partnership, equity will be a core criterion in all alliance agreements, HIV and AIDS training and education will be addressed in all four and research, monitoring and evaluation will underpin all programmes.

UK Sport’s IDEALS advanced and professional exchange programme also focuses on the youth development and coach education strands respectively. 

International Sports Development Fund

This strand works through sport specific partnerships to help foster closer relationships with the international sporting community and to ensure we maintain a strategic focus on sports development and includes the following areas:

• Partnerships with International Sports Federations and UK National Governing Bodies
• Partnerships with southern sports federations and national sports bodies
• 3 way partnerships  of UK Sport with southern communities and UK HEIs to develop sports through fostering leadership via the IDEALS programme
• IDS funded projects complement the International Sports Development Fund and vice versa

International Research, Conferences and Networking

This strand underpins our work on sport development by building up a credible evidence base for the use of sport as a tool for human and social development, raising awareness, and sharing best practice. It works through the following methods:

• Network Memberships
• Monitoring & Evaluation and Academic Research
• South-South Exchange 
• Communications and Marketing
• Conference and Workshop hosting
• Next Step Conference

Inter-Government Partnerships

UK Sport forms and builds strategic alliances with governments, helping the UK to learn and share best practice. Some of the agreements have an elite sport focus, where the outcomes are innovation and knowledge transfer, others use sport as a tool for diplomacy, and /or allow the UK to work more strategically on the sport for development agenda.

The UK has Memoranda of Understanding with the following countries:

• South Africa
• China
• Saudi Arabia
• Tanzania
• Brazil

International Development through Sport (IDS)

International Development through Sport (IDS) is an independent UK registered charity, which harnesses the power of sport to transform the lives of some of the poorest children and young people in the world by giving them the chance to play sport, develop their skills and confidence and live healthier, happier and safer lives.

Sport is hugely popular amongst children and young people in the developing world offering an innovative and participatory way of engaging their attention and providing a unique platform for HIV/AIDS and life skills education and the encouragement of healthy lifestyle choices.

IDS works with grass roots organisations in developing countries, primarily in Africa, to use sport as a means to:

• Promote equity and remove gender and disability barriers 
• Develop young leaders with sport and life skills 
• Deliver effective HIV/AIDS education 
• Offer trauma relief and rehabilitation 
• Assist with conflict resolution in war-torn communities.

IDS works with local partners to ensure that all programmes are locally driven and meet local needs. To underpin its work with robust evidence, IDS undertakes research into the impact of sport in achieving development goals and shares models of best practice with its partners.

IDS is the charitable arm of UK Sport. While UK Sport supports the administration of the charity, IDS is an independent charity with its own Board of Trustees.