International Civic Engagement

UNICEF and FIFA Kick off "Goals for Girls!" Campaign to Promote Rights

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) have kicked off a new “Goals for Girls!” campaign which aims to promote education, gender equality and women’s rights through sport.

Launched on September 7 in conjunction with the FIFA Women’s World Cup China 2007, Goals for Girls! will use the competition as a platform to explain how educating girls not only helps eliminate gender discrimination but also contributes to addressing many of the most serious problems their communities face.

“Children everywhere have a right to education, and educating girls is a key to defeating poverty, hunger, disease, violence, abuse and exploitation,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. “Through Goals for Girls!, UNICEF and FIFA will take this important message to soccer fans around the world.”

The Federation’s President, Joseph S. Blatter, said FIFA’s long-standing partnership with UNICEF is founded on the two organizations’ shared goal of supporting the rights of children, especially those of girls. “Football has an indispensable role to play as a tool for promoting integration, education and communication and, as such, it can help build a better future,” he said.

The UNICEF-FIFA campaign promotes the child-friendly school model, offering both genders a quality education in a safe environment, even in emergency situations. UNICEF also works with partners and governments to remove barriers to education, including school fees and lack of access.

During the current competition, the 16 best women’s national teams from the six confederations will be competing September 10-30 in Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin and Wuhan to be crowned world champion.

Since 2001, UNICEF and FIFA have teamed up on numerous occasions, using the world’s most popular sport to inform them about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and help protect them from violence and exploitation.

Right To Play, MLS W.O.R.K.S. Announce Partnership

Right To Play, a world leader in using sport for child development and peace, in partnership with MLS W.O.R.K.S., Major League Soccer's first league-wide community outreach initiative, announced yesterday at the 2007 Sierra Mist MLS All-Star Game that 20 MLS soccer stars from around the league have joined Right To Play as Athlete Ambassadors to raise awareness and funds to help children in the world's most disadvantaged places. The Kansas City Wizards are the only MLS team to have three players named to the list of stars reaching out to the less fortunate. [Disclosure - I am a former Wizards season-ticket holder.]

"We are very excited to announce this incredibly generous support from Major League Soccer and its players," said four-time Olympic gold medalist and Right To Play president and CEO Johann Olav Koss. "Right To Play's work in Sport for Development and peace is strengthened by the commitment of these athletes and MLS W.O.R.K.S. This kick-off event is just the beginning of a long and productive partnership that will impact thousands of children worldwide."

Right To Play uses specially-designed sport and play programs to improve health, build life skills, and foster peace for children and communities affected by war, poverty and disease. Working in both the humanitarian and development contexts, Right To Play has projects in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Right To Play is a global-scale implementer of Sport for Development and Peace programs and takes an active role in driving research and policy development in this area and in supporting children's rights. For more information visit the website at www.righttoplay.com.

Brazilian Star and UN Ambassador Dedicates Final to Hungry Children

When the Brazilian midfielder Kaká takes to the field tonight to battle for one of soccer’s most glittering prizes, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) ambassador will dedicate his participation to the plight of the world’s estimated 400 million hungry children.

Kaká, 25, who will play for the Italian club AC Milan against Liverpool of the United Kingdom in the final of the Champions League in Athens, is the youngest Ambassador Against Hunger for the WFP.

“As professional footballers, we are very privileged,” Kaká said after arriving in Athens to prepare for the match. “From time to time we have a chance to help others because of who we are and what we do. I want to use my position as a WFP Ambassador Against Hunger to make more people aware of the challenges of feeding hundreds of millions of hungry children in some of the poorest, least developed parts of the world.”

WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said “it’s an incredible asset to have the world’s best player in the world’s favorite game on our team. Kaká has shown that he can combine the skills and dedication needed to be at the very top of the game with a commitment to a worthy humanitarian cause.”

WFP gives food to an average of 90 million people, including 58 million children, each year across 80 countries as part of its programmes to assist the world’s most needy and malnourished.

Other WFP Ambassadors Against Hunger include the Kenyan marathon world record holder Paul Tergat, the Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho and the Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora.

UN Uses Soccer as Tool for Peace

Giving a modern twist to the biblical injunction to beat swords into ploughshares, the United Nations is urging Liberians to replace mortars with soccer balls in an innovative Sports for Peace programme to promote reconciliation and development in the formerly strife-torn West African country.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf gave the inaugural kick-off at a soccer game over the weekend in the Antoinette Tubman Stadium in Monrovia, the capital, launching a five-week-long UN-supported programme in football, kickball and volleyball to be held throughout Liberia’s 15 counties.

“In sport, I learn to win without thinking I am the best; I learn to lose without thinking it is the end,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace Adolf Ogi told thousands of people at the ceremony, stressing sport’s message as an essential tool for creating peace, national reconciliation and harmony. “I learn to respect the opponent and the rules; I learn to accept the decision of the referee.”

It was a message underlined by Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf. “The participation of all Liberians is necessary for the peace and development of the nation,” she said, recalling how during the country’s 14-year civil war, sporting activities, especially football matches involving the Liberian national team, the Lone Star, brought sudden voluntary ceasefires between the warring factions.

Sport as an instrument for peace and social development can enhance the efforts of the Government in restoring the hope and dignity of the people of Liberia, she added.

Mr. Ban’s Special Representative for Liberia Alan Doss noted that sport can keep people, especially youth, out of trouble and expressed the hope that the effective participation of Liberian youth in sporting activities would help end the cycle of violence in the West African sub-region.

In a lecture at the University of Liberia, Sports as a Vehicle for Peace and Development, Mr. Ogi, a former President of Switzerland, called sport a cost-effective tool for peace and development that could be used by governments of developing countries as a key part of their national development strategies.

He told the students to use sport as a tool kit of life, stressing that that every Liberian girl and boy should have the opportunity to make mistakes on the field of sport so as to feel how to react under the pressure of defeat, adding, “This lesson of sport helps us to fit well into society.”

Through the assistance of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Liberian authorities and the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) recently received a container-load of sporting goods and equipment valued at over $76,000 for the program.

In another development, a 19-member delegation of the Executive Boards of the UN Development Program (UNDP), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Population Fund (UNFPA) ended a week-long visit to Liberia aimed at highlighting how the world body can contribute to the transition of nations from post-conflict to reconstruction, recovery and development.

UNMIL, with more than 15,000 soldiers and police, already helped to oversee the country’s emergence from civil war in 2003, culminating in Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf’s election in November 2005.

Ace Goal Scorers to Shoot against Poverty in UN Soccer Match

Soccer legends Ronaldo and Zinédine Zidane are inviting some of the world’s top players to join them in an all-star line-up for a match against poverty next month as part of a push to raise awareness of and funds for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The fourth “Match Against Poverty: Ronaldo and friends vs. Zidane and friends” will be played on March 19 at the Stade du Vélodrome in Marseille, France, with the two stars, both Goodwill Ambassadors for the UN Development Program (UNDP), each captaining an international team in a friendly aimed at mobilizing the public in the fight against poverty.

“It has been really encouraging to see the response from the public and the media to the previous games,” said AC Milan striker Ronaldo, who with former French captain Zidane has been the driving force behind the Match Against Poverty since 2003. “We really want to continue mobilizing the world of football (soccer) in helping to raise awareness and overcome poverty.”

This will be the first game in Europe for Zidane since he retired from international football at the end of the 2006 World Cup. “I have retired from professional football (soccer), but I am determined to continue playing in my capacity as UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for such a good cause, and to contribute to this annual gathering with my friend Ronaldo,” he said.

The MDGs, adopted by the leaders of 191 countries at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, seek to halve world poverty by 2015 by setting targets for rolling back hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

“It is a tremendous message when our Goodwill Ambassadors Ronaldo, Zidane and Drogba say they are scoring goals – not just for the game – but against poverty,” UNDP Associate Administrator Ad Melkert said, including Côte d’Ivoire soccer star Didier Drogba, a top scorer in the English Premiership, who became a UNDP a Goodwill Ambassador last month.

“Through the Match Against Poverty, millions of fans witness their heroes in soccer become heroes in the fight against extreme poverty. This message is so important because only in partnership with governments, the private sector, civil society and individuals like Ronaldo, Zidane and Drogba will we be able to truly overcome poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” he added.

Proceeds from the first three Matches have benefited anti-poverty projects ranging from support to female entrepreneurs to the construction of sports centres for street children and the disadvantaged in Brazil, Burkina Faso, Bhutan, Comoros, Cuba, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Morocco, Namibia, Sri Lanka, The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Viet Nam. Once again, all proceeds from ticket sales will go to projects selected by UNDP in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

As in the previous games football’s governing body, FIFA, supports the match, while sporting-goods manufacturers Nike and Adidas are contributing equipment for the teams. In partnership with UNDP, the match is being organized with the support of the City of Marseille, which is hosting the game at the Stade du Vélodrome, and the Olympique de Marseille team, which is providing technical assistance.

With UN, Ronaldo and Zidane Spotlight Bid to Promote "Green" 2010 World Cup

Yesterday, United Nations Goodwill Ambassadors and renowned international football players Ronaldo Luiz Nazariode Lima and Zinédine Zidane along with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) issued a joint statement supporting plans to build a cleaner, healthier, energy-efficient public transport system in South Africa in time for the 2010 World Cup.

“The FIFA World Cup is a stage for the skills and talents of the world’s finest footballers, and teams. But it is also a real opportunity to showcase the talents of engineers, designers, architects and city planners and their solutions for a cleaner, fairer, and ultimately more just planet,” they said.

An eco-friendly project to achieve that highlighted today at the opening of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly in Cape Town “is about much more than the mobility of footballers and fans,” said UNDP Associate Administrator Ad Melkert, who is a participant in the GEF conference.

The project will investigate clean energy alternatives to fossil fuel-driven transport, make public transport a viable alternative to private cars for match spectators, and create better, sustainable transport planning around the country. This, said Mr. Melkert, “will leave a lasting legacy with South Africa taking the lead in pushing back pollution that is now ‘suffocating’ many of the poor.”

For the first time the world’s greatest football tournament will be hosted by an African country, and with around 300,000 international visitors expected, the South African Government wants to ensure that the current unreliable, polluting and dangerous public transport system gets the attention it will require to accommodate them.

The project is currently being submitted by the South African Government to the GEF Assembly through UNDP. Established in 1991, the GEF helps developing countries fund projects and programmes which protect the global environment. “GEF partners are well placed to elevate the environmental challenge to the global agenda,” Mr. Melkert said.

Additionally GEF grants support projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer and persistent organic pollutants. The three implementing agencies of the GEF are the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UNDP.

Ronaldo and Zidane noted in their UNDP statement that sub-standard public transportation perpetuates poverty, generates health-threatening polluted air and contributes to climate change, which affects everyone, everywhere.  “We both have personal experience of this as we were both brought up in communities where poor quality public transport was sadly the norm.”

The athletes voiced hope that “when the final whistle blows” at the 2010 World Cup, the project will have played its part in making the event “healthier, more enjoyable and more inclusive” while “acting as a catalyst for the development of 21st century public transport across Africa and the developing world.”

Brazilian Soccer Great Ronaldinho Scores Role as UN Spokesperson for Development

[I continue to try to connect soccer to international civic engagement.  This might be the fourth or fifth post on the subject this year!]

Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho, one of the world's best known sports figures, agreed Friday to use his celebrity status to help the United Nations fight poverty when he was appointed UN Spokesperson for Sport for Development and Peace.

After meeting Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Ronaldo Assis de Moreira, or Ronaldinho as he is known worldwide, told a press conference in New York that he was “extremely honored and excited” to lend his support to the world body’s peace and development work.

“Sport is a universal language that has no barriers. Football has obviously provided me with a wonderful life, and I believe it is now my mission to give something back and to help youth understand that the power of sport can help them achieve their dreams,” he said.

One of Ronaldinho’s first activities as Spokesperson will be helping mobilize youth worldwide to tackle poverty in connection with the UN’s Global Youth Leadership Summit in New York set to take place from 29 to 31 October, the world body said in a press release.

His appointment was made on behalf of Adolf Ogi, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, by Djibril Diallo, Director of the UN New York Office of Sport for Development and Peace 2005.

“Ronaldinho’s appointment builds on the momentum of the International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005 by helping mobilize the world of soccer and its fans in support of social and economic development, health, education and peace,” Mr. Ogi, former President of Switzerland, said in a message for Friday’s event.

Ronaldinho, who is a midfield player for FC Barcelona and was the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005, will be paid a symbolic salary of $1 a year for his UN work, said Mr. Diallo, adding that the contract will be for two years.

In a related development, Ronaldinho was also honored Friday for his humanitarian contributions by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which is the regional office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO).

At a ceremony in New York, Ronaldinho received the PAHO “Champion of Health” award from Deputy Director Dr. Joxel García for his work in supporting the organization’s vaccination coverage throughout the Americas, as well as its program to reduce youth violence through awareness
campaigns.

Ronaldinho also serves as a UN World Food Program (WFP) Ambassador Against Hunger.

Annan Extols Soccer's "Universal Langauge"

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in Berlin to attend the World Cup final (won by Italy in penalty kicks), compared the state of world football with the state of the world at large, and the most popular sport on Earth came out on top, with its equality, level playing field and transparency affording a shining example.

Giving just some of the reasons why the World Cup “makes us in the UN green with envy,” he cited the sport’s “universal language,” its multifaceted role in bridging ethnic, social, cultural and religious divides, promoting teamwork and fair play and empowering girls.

“As the pinnacle of the only truly global game, played in every country by every race and every religion, it is one of the few phenomena as universal as the United Nations,” he said at a ceremony at the unveiling of the emblem of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) for the 2010 World Cup, to be held in South Africa.

“You could even say it’s more universal. FIFA has 207 members; we have a mere 192. The World Cup is an event in which everybody knows where their team stands, and what it did to get there. Everybody loves talking about what their team did right, and what it could have done differently.

“I wish we had more of that sort of competition and conversation in the family of nations. Countries openly vying for the best standing in the table of respect for human rights, and trying to outdo one another in reducing the number of new HIV infections. States parading their performance for all the world to see. Governments being held accountable for what actions led them to that result. Citizens consumed by the topic of how their country could do better,” he added.

“With that kind of public scrutiny, good governance would not be an option; it would be a necessity. And with that sense of public ownership, countries would better ensure that their own resources are used in a way that benefits their own daughters and sons.”

Citing more reasons to be envious, he noted that the World Cup takes place on a level playing field, where every country has a chance to participate on equal terms and only two commodities matter: talent and team work.

“I wish we had more levelers like that in the global arena. Free and fair exchanges without the interference of subsidies, barriers or tariffs. Every country getting a real chance to field its strengths on the world stage,” Mr. Annan declared.

The World Cup illustrates the benefits of “cross-pollination” between peoples and countries, with more and more national teams welcoming coaches from other countries and more and more players represent clubs away from home between the Cups.

“They all bring new ways of thinking and playing. Everybody wins by that cross-pollination,” he said. “I wish it were equally plain for all to see that human migration in general can create triple wins – for migrants, for their countries of origin, and for the societies that receive them.”

He, for one, would be migrating briefly to South Africa in July 2010 to see the next Cup, he concluded.

Football, Sports, and Development

From the World Bank:

For two months every four years, the world stops for the World Cup. It is estimated that 1.3 billion people watched the final of the 2002 World Cup in Japan, a number which is sure to rise this year in Berlin. So, earlier this year, research teams from some of the world's leading investment banks shifted their eyes from stocks and bonds to predicting the winners of this summer's matches in Germany. The reason - studies suggest that success or failure in football (or soccer) may affect a country's economy.

Joschka Fischer, Germany 's former foreign minister, in a preamble to some of this research, estimates that this year "up to 80% of people around the globe will watch the games, while economic productivity will drop." In the aftermath though, there are positives. ABN AMRO calculates that countries winning the World Cup add 0.7% to their economic growth. ABN AMRO also shows that economic crises are typically followed by poor results from a country's football team. Another study suggests that coming from a country that has legal systems of French origin might contribute to a team's success.

Fischer also writes that football is "a really impressive example of successful globalization." Referring to efforts to develop African football starting in the 1960s, he notes there is a new generation of young African football players now playing in major European leagues, and their experiences and skills are being transferred back home. He believes there is a real lesson here in the Africa football revolution: "Effective financial and technical aid, and market access to the First World soccer market are the elements of an unprecedented success story." Where will this success lead? Perhaps to the top. South Africa hosts the next Cup in 2010 - a first for an African nation. History shows that the Cup is seldom won by teams from outside the host continent.

Some won't be able to watch because they don't have access to electricity or are living in a country embroiled in conflict. Yet even these people may be positively affected by the World Cup. In recent years, development organizations and civil society groups have increasingly begun to turn to sports as a tool for poverty and conflict reduction. The hope is, that for the 2010 World Cup, far more people will have the means and freedom to enjoy the games.

The World Bank's web site contains numerous research papers related to this subject.

World Cup and International Civic Engagement

The World Cup kicks off today in Germany and millions, if not billions, of individuals will spend the next month glued to their television sets.  Being a responsible Park University employee, I have vowed to do the right thing and limit my midweek soccer viewing to a bare minimum.

I did, however, get creative and scheduled a World Cup-themed event to take place next Wednesday.  See the description below.  Of course, I am hoping for the United States to win this year's tournament.  If not, I will once again follow closely the Brazilians, a team and style of soccer I have admired greatly since watching my first World Cup in 1982.

On June 14, Poland and Germany will compete in an opening round 2006 World Cup soccer match. At 1:30 p.m. that day, Dr. Jerzy Hauptmann, professor emeritus of political science and public administration at Park University, will offer some personal reflections about the historical rivalry between Poland and Germany. Hauptmann, who is fluent in both Polish and German, served in the underground Polish Home Army during World War II and spent time in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. At 2:00 p.m., Park University's International Center for Civic Engagement will screen the match in the McCoy Meetin' House on the University's Parkville, MO campus. (check out our cool poster!)