G7 Development Ministers Meetings | Road to the 2024 Apulia Summit

Logo of the 2024 G7 Italian Presidency

Pescara Declaration on Sustainable Investment in the Sport Ecosystem

G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (GPII)
Ad Hoc Expert Group on Sport and Sustainable Development with a Special Focus on Africa

G7 Development Ministers' Meeting
Pescara, Italy, October 23, 2024
[pdf]

We, G7 Development Ministers, come together in Pescara, under the leadership of Italy, to advance our Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). As stressed during the Sport for Sustainable Development Summit in Paris last July before the Olympic Games, we concur on the importance of further strengthening our multi-dimensional partnership with Africa and working together to accelerate and scale-up quality investment in support of Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the UN 2030 Agenda. In this context, we reiterate the positive and enabling role that sport and the sport ecosystem can play in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The sport ecosystem has the potential to make a larger contribution to Africa’s development. Investment in physical activity, physical education and sport in its diverse forms, including grass-roots sports, school sport and sporting events, and the development of the sport industry and sport-related infrastructure can contribute positively to Africa’s development objectives, notably for education and employment, physical and mental health, equality and inclusion, economic growth and environmental sustainability. Effective policy and regulatory frameworks, human capacity building, and greater mobilisation of financial resources are needed to realise such potential, including with a focus on young people and children.
Investment in sports should be made with full compliance with national and international agreements, standards and guidelines, including regarding transparency and integrity, human rights and safeguarding measures. We also recognise the fundamental right to sport of every human being without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or any other basis. In particular, we recognise the need to ensure that women and girls in all their diversity, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups enjoy the right to fully, equally and meaningfully participate and be involved at all supervision and decision-making levels in sport, whether for the purpose of grassroots or high performance sport.
There is also a need to better integrate evaluation and impact assessment methodologies in financing decisions that adequately valorise the social and broader sustainable development return on investment in sports. We also recognise the contribution that sport events can have on local development and the importance of leveraging such events for sustainable economic, social and environmental benefits. We encourage the systematic use of relevant guidelines and impact assessment tools to ensure a sustainable legacy of major sports events.
We note and encourage the commitment of public development banks to mobilise quality investment for the development of sports, and to enhance the contribution of sport to the SDGs. We welcome innovative financial initiatives promoted by the Finance in Common’s Coalition for Sustainable Development through Sport, including the first Global Sport Impact Fund announced during the Sport for Sustainable Development Summit in Paris before the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
We recognize the importance of the International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport and other key international frameworks and policy instruments, tools and strategies – notably those developed by UNESCO, OECD and IOC – as well as Council of Europe’s and African policy frameworks such as the European Sport Charter and the African Union’s Policy Framework for the Sustainable Development of Sport in Africa to help shape our actions and inform our engagement with African countries in this area.
There is an urgent need to ensure that actions and decisions continue to be informed by better, publicly available and internationally comparable data and evidence to measure the contribution of sport and sport value chains to socio-economic development, to better inform policy and attract more investment in sport across the African continent as well as internationally. We recognise the need for internationally accepted tools and methods to guide and measure the impact of public and private investment in sports industries, major sporting events, and sports infrastructure, including among others, Social Return on Investment methodologies, and relevant international standards and policy instruments.
We will continue to pursue our work with African partners, development finance institutions, international and regional organisations, private sector and civil society to enhance the scale, reach and impact of investment in sports for sustainable development. We will aim to broaden relevant data and knowledge, and share good practices on policy design, on impact assessment, and on the mobilisation of financial resources.
Against this background, we endorse the following set of High-Level Principles on Sustainable Investment in the Sport Ecosystem (Pescara Principles):

Pescara Principles on Sustainable Investment in the Sport Ecosystem

Stakeholder Engagement: Engage relevant stakeholders including national and regional governments, local authorities, local communities, local sport for development experts and knowledge networks, development financing institutions, multilateral development banks, public development banks, sector-specific departments, private sector, civil society, and other key stakeholders in the sport ecosystem, to build new pathways and partnerships, to promote a multi-stakeholder approach to the use of sport for development.
Inclusion: Invest to realise the fundamental right to sport of every human being including in schools, with gender equality and non-discrimination as cross-cutting issues irrespective of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or any other basis, to ensure safe and equitable access to the benefits of sport for everyone and in particular all women and girls, people with disabilities and disadvantaged groups, and to take active steps to ensure their full, equal and meaningful participation in the decision-making and administrative processes on investment in sport.
Financing: Mobilise relevant financing stakeholders to invest in sport as a high-impact, low-cost solution to drive the achievement of SDGs in line with national and regional development priorities aligned to the 2030 Agenda. Utilise varied and flexible financing instruments combining financing from all sources including public financing, incentives for private investment and blended approaches.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Support the development of a strong evidence base on the contribution of the sports ecosystem to development, and enhance collaboration and alignment with relevant international and regional organisations, the sport movement, civil society, and private sector entities to support coherent evaluation of related policy implementation, project design and execution, and infrastructure development.
Data and Indicators: Coordinate national statistics offices, relevant departments, academia and industry experts to identify, adopt, and make use of existing research, data, tools, and mechanisms to capture the contribution of sport to the SDGs. Contextualise for different national and local contexts, and harmonize approaches to measure the contribution and impact of sport on sustainable development, to guide policy development, financing and interventions.
Capacity Development: In collaboration with local Sport for Development stakeholders build knowledge and develop governments’ capacities to develop national sport for development frameworks, alongside development financing actors and civil society, to utilise impact investment in sport, and leverage partnerships with all relevant stakeholders to increase public and private investments in sport for development.
Sustainable, Inclusive, Resilient and Quality Infrastructure: Ensure that investments in sports infrastructure comply with recognized quality and sustainability certification frameworks. Ensure that responsible authorities and owners of sport infrastructure, when building, maintaining and operating facilities and public spaces for sport, strive to maximize energy- and resource-efficiency, minimize adverse impact on the natural environment and anticipate how infrastructures will be used and maintained over the long term (strategies and training plans for infrastructure maintenance and occupancy). Ensure that these infrastructures are accessible to all, inclusive and gender-responsive, especially for girls and women, people with disabilities and people alienated from physical activity in all their diversity.
Sustainable Legacy of Major Sports Events: Support event owners, public authorities, sports organizations, commercial stakeholders, and the media to ensure a sustainable legacy for the hosting communities of major sports events with regard to the financial cost, environmental and social impact, the post-event use of any infrastructure and the effect on participation in sport, and to leverage the hosting of major sports events for broader local economic development and employment goals, promoting inclusive growth, and the improved well-being of citizens and enhanced role of sport in international cooperation activities of the host territory.

DEFINITION OF SPORT: the term “sport” is used as a generic term, comprising sport for all, physical play, recreation, dance, organized, casual, competitive, traditional and indigenous sports and games in their diverse forms.

[back to top]

Source: Official website of Italy's 2024 G7 presidency

—	This Information System is provided by the University of Toronto Libraries and the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto.
	Please send comments to: g7@utoronto.ca This page was last updated October 23, 2024.