#France 🇫🇷 is the host of many major sporting events, like the Rugby World Cup, French Open, Tour de France, and summer and winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. We’re ready for #Paris2024!
🤔 So what does sports diplomacy bring to these events?@DucroquetSamuel pic.twitter.com/AFlQsrrS4I
— France Diplomacy 🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@francediplo_EN) July 8, 2024
To that end, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs is playing an integral role in organizing these major sporting events, whether in terms of consular and protocol matters, communications or crisis management. The legacy of these sporting events will be built over the long term, particularly through the implementation of the government’s Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Plan.
Sport has become a major cooperation tool in our bilateral relationships. Hosting the biggest international sporting events in France increases our partners’ interest in deepening partnerships in this area, particularly in relation to guiding and supporting the reinforcement of sporting ecosystems in Africa. The diplomatic network, via the Embassies in the “Terre de Jeux 2024” programme, is actively supporting the French sports movement’s international exchanges and the sporting ecosystem in these embassies’ countries of residence.
French diplomacy attaches great importance to sport’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs has gradually started using its cooperation tools for the benefit of sports diplomacy, as with the Team France Fund (FEF) since 2019 and the Équipe France Rapide Fund (FEF-R) since 2023. These funds enable our embassies to back sports related projects, focusing on several strategic areas:
facilitating access to sporting infrastructure and equipment;strengthening governance in sport;developing high-level sport; andsupporting policies related to inclusion, the fight against discrimination and reintegration through sport.
Since 2019, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs has therefore supported over 60 projects that use sport to drive development and have been implemented by civil society organizations, such as sports federations, local associations, universities, press and journalism training agencies and businesses, etc.
The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs is also supporting decentralized cooperation in sport through the “Sport and Decentralized Cooperation” call for proposals. Set up in 2021, it has already funded 45 cooperation projects between local governments in France and abroad, with support from our embassies, totalling €4.3 million.
Sport, a driver of women’s empowerment through our cooperation projects ⚽🏉
❝For inclusion, the promotion of gender equality, and excellence in women’s sport❞@DucroquetSamuel @GeorgesLaura @FranceandGhana @FranceBagdad @France_au_Faso pic.twitter.com/OYfvNh2Xym
— France Diplomacy 🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@francediplo_EN) March 12, 2024
As an agency of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in 2018 the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) was mandated to draw up a Sports and Development strategy. Since 2019, over €200 million has been pledged to cooperation projects, and more than 100 projects in the sport sector in all AFD intervention countries have received support. It is within this framework that funding was provided for projects to reinforce women’s rugby in Benin, to develop academies combining sport and education for young people in Senegal, Liberia, Morocco, Cameroon, Mali and South Africa, and to increase social cohesion on the continent via the “Sport en Commun” platform which supports, among others, high-level French and African athletes in the creation of associations using sport as a tool of development.
Alongside the Ministry of Sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the France Sport Expertise economic interest grouping, Business France and the entire sports sector, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs supports the international development of French sports companies. It is also working on the economic attractiveness of our regions with a view to hosting major international sporting events, including by supporting French candidacies.
The diplomatic network also helps to promote French positions on major sports-related issues such as governance, ethics, the fight against doping and rigged matches, and the fight against discrimination. This action takes place not only within international sporting bodies, but also other global forums (e.g. UN, UNESCO, European Union, OECD, Council of Europe).
The Dioko Alliance is an example of success in terms of “sports Francophonie”, which encourages the sharing of expertise and knowledge between France and Senegal with regard to Paris 2024 and the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games (YOG). The aim is to provide support to Senegal to make this first African Olympiad a success – particularly by building and renovating sports facilities for the YOG – but also by providing them with a legacy for the people of Senegal, for example by developing local sports facilities.
Finally, the Ministry works to ensure that the French language is used and promoted during sporting events, particularly the Olympic and Paralympic Games (support for the signing of an agreement between the OIF and the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, French involvement in the Francophone Games organized in Kinshasa in July/August 2022, etc.).
Updated: July 2024
Source link : https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/sports-diplomacy/what-is-sports-diplomacy/
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-08 09:11:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
