The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Olympics

LONDON’S OLYMPIC LEGACY: INSPIRING THE FUTURE

From a speech by the Rt Hon Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Olympics, to the International Olympics Committee International Forum on Sport, Peace and Development, May 2009.

As we learn more about the impact that the downturn is having on economies around the world, we also learn more about the potential that sport has in guiding the citizens of the world out of recession and its growing role in helping to re-shape the economies of countries, both in the developed and the developing world.

Not only is progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals — which provide the structure for our development ambitions — slow, but the global economic downturn has placed tremendous strain on the budgets of all countries, rich and poor.

We know that, at a time like this, development aid and investment is more important than ever, and it is therefore a vital moment to ask ourselves whether we are doing all that we can, drawing on every possible resource.

I believe we need to be even more assertive about the role of sport as an irreplaceable force in moving the world forward; about recognising, for example, that there is more that the Olympic Movement could be doing to help prevent half-a-million women dying each year in pregnancy and childbirth, the vast majority of them unnecessarily.

So this is a timely discussion. But it will only be a significant one if we go beyond a mere accounting exercise — a roll-call of what different organisations are already achieving separately and in a piecemeal way — and move instead towards defining our collective ambition.

Key to this is the question: What does the Olympic Movement want to achieve for development and peace? Where should we be setting our sights? How can we harness this uniquely trusted global brand?

We know that De Coubertin’s vision was of an Olympic Games, accessible to all, that could bring the full power of sport to bear on educational and cultural development and that would serve as ‘a potent, if indirect factor, in securing universal peace’.

We also know that the Olympic charter commits the movement “to place, everywhere, sport at the service of the harmonious development of man”, and to “contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport, practised without discrimination of any kind”.

To witness the power of these values in action, we need look no further than the success of the Paralympic Movement and the IPC in bringing the achievements of people with disabilities to the attention of the world and challenging and changing perceptions of disability.

At the same time, we understand very well the enormous potential of sport for development.

We know not only that it can be the thread that stitches together existing activities for tackling poverty — providing education and health, working for gender equality, environmental sustainability and so on — but that the sporting element can also act as a catalyst for these activities, broadening their reach and strengthening their impact.

But we have constantly to ask ourselves: Are we responding to the challenges of today by modifying and deepening the ambition of yesterday?

I was invited here today to talk about how the legacy of London can inspire the future. As you know, it was London’s commitment to delivering a lasting legacy that defined our bid. Part of that commitment was to mobilise the inspirational power of the Olympics to get 2 million people in the UK playing sport or being more active by 2012.

It is a promise that must be seen as part of a wider, long-term commitment — driven first by the ambition of bidding, then of winning the bid, and now of staging the Games — and one that has resulted in unprecedented levels of children playing sport in school in the UK or, at a younger age, being physically active.

As a result, we have moved, in the last few years from a position where 23 per cent of our children were playing sport for two hours or more every week to a position where that figure is well over 90 per cent — an increase of 4 million since 2002.

We would not have been able to mobilise our ambition on that scale had it not been for London 2012. And the Olympics are allowing us to extend the level of our ambition even further.

Last year we pledged £100mn to ensure that all young people aged 5–16 are offered five hours a week of high-quality sport and, at a younger age, physical activity. Only last month we launched a £140mn programme, offering free swimming to over-60s and under-16s.

Of course, our aim is to use programmes like these to help create a world-leading sporting nation; one that, come 2012, will be riding high in the Olympic and Paralympic medal tables. Our elite athletes have more money and better organisation than ever before, because we are hosting London 2012.

But we also want to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make one of the best possible socio-economic investments we can for young people, because investment in sport is also an investment in higher educational attainment, better health and well-being, stronger engagement in community and society and greater lifelong prospects.

But the boundaries of our ambition extend well beyond the UK. When we won the 2012 bid, we promised to help bring these benefits to young people in developing countries too. That is why, in a partnership between London 2012, UNICEF, the British Council, and UK Sport, we have established the International Inspiration programme — the first of its kind.

Although there have been similar initiatives before, the scale of ambition here and the linkage to the Olympic Games are unique, and I am terribly proud that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recognised International Inspiration as an Olympic programme.

The focus here is on driving the power of sport for good, providing core skills to teachers, coaches and young leaders, and creating networks that can leverage further access to sport, physical education and play for children. And it is important to scale up this work and make it sustainable; to move beyond the patchwork of small-scale initiatives. Crucially, we must use the knowledge we gain at grass roots level to work with governments in target countries, helping them to shape national policies which will, in turn, benefit all children and young people.

So far, £23mn has been raised towards a target of around £50mn — money that is being used to work with governments to introduce systemic change in their outlook for sport for young people, fostering a more accessible and inclusive sports policy that can deliver the wider benefits of sport to all and help transform lives.

But it is easy to talk about transforming lives. What do we really mean?

• We mean the teenagers that I was lucky enough to meet when I visited one of the poorest suburbs of Recife in north-east Brazil at the end of last year. Teenagers whom our pilot project has trained as young leaders and who are now no longer talking about a future defined by the dangers of violence, drugs and prostitution — who are talking instead about their ambitions to become doctors, lawyers or scientists.
• We mean the countless children in India who will now have access to high-quality physical education thanks to the 700 new teachers and teacher trainers that International Inspiration has already, at this early stage, delivered.
• We mean the hundreds of children with disabilities in Azerbaijan — a country that has almost no history of sport for people with disability — who are experiencing organised sport for the first time.
• We mean the nearly 3,000 newly trained young leaders from across Brazil, India and Azerbaijan, as well as Zambia and Palau, who are now working with up to 150,000 children and young people in their schools and communities.

And the lessons that we apply in order to drive the intensification of our commitment to sport in the UK are exactly the same lessons that we are trying to apply globally.

There is already strong evidence from developing countries that children stay longer in schools where sport is offered. And it is, of course, access to, and long-term engagement in, education that makes the biggest contribution to a child’s life chances.

International Inspiration has already driven national policy change. In Azerbaijan, for example, the programme led to the development of a new national sport development plan for young people, which will last until 2020, along with a four-year programme on fostering better physical education and sport.

In the next phase, International Inspiration aims to spread these benefits to five more countries: Bangladesh, Mozambique, Jordan, Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago. And it will not stop there. Our ambition is to expand the programme to as many as 20 countries ahead of 2012, reaching more than 12 million children and young people across the world.

With International Inspiration, we are hoping to lay the foundations for a truly international legacy for London 2012 — a legacy of lives changed forever; of ambitions and dreams realised.

We are also hoping that it is a programme that we can pass on to future host cities, which is why I would like to see all the 2016 bidding cities commit to taking it on.

But how can programmes like this help point the way forward for the Olympic Movement as a whole?

The answer is in the development of a strategic and systemic approach:

• Working at grass-roots level, building sporting communities in consultation with local leaders, teachers and parents
• Tackling barriers to participation from the bottom up rather than assuming that the trickle-down impacts of investing in elite sport will be enough to drive change
• Using what we learn to develop our national policies for investing in grass-roots sport
• Better co-ordination and sharing of knowledge and a less scattered and piecemeal approach
• Seeking new ways of finding funding from the international sports industries and from the major professional sports, for example the effective partnerships that International Inspiration has built and the funding it has received from the English Premier League.

It is inevitable that each individual Olympic Games sets standards for future hosts to live up to, and the excellent work being done through Olympic Solidarity, and by many NOCs and NPCs around the world, must be applauded.

But the IOC — as the heart of the Olympic Movement — has a vital role to play in co-ordinating and directing efforts in a way that can maximise the power of sport for development and peace.

So I strongly welcome:

• The IOC’s closer engagement with the work of the UN, in particular its request for observer status
• The IOC’s involvement in the UN Sport for Development and Peace initiative and the fact that it has clearly identified five development goals it can, with its partners, help to advance through sport
• The Framework for Sport that was agreed by the African Union in Accra last October — an example of what the Olympic Movement should encourage worldwide.

But we can never be complacent, and there is much more to be done. The discussions here this week should provide us with a real springboard to boost our ambitions for sport and development. And if the IOC is going to take this opportunity to start defining those ambitions and articulating them on behalf of the whole Olympic Movement, allow me to offer some thoughts.

I believe that a manifesto for sport, development and peace should recognise:

• That everyone in the Olympic Family has a role to play in promoting the use of sport for wider social development and supporting peace across the globe
• That the Olympic Movement must work with UN agencies and others to advocate the role of sport in improving young peoples’ lives and helping to meet the Millennium Development Goals
• That the IOC must play a global leadership role in co-ordinating and directing this work and in mobilising the NOCs in support of the Working Group on Sport for Development and Peace
• That focusing on elite sport is not enough to fulfil the potential of sport for development, and that the IOC must help NOCs and NPCs foster sporting activity at the grass-roots, as advocates and conduits for sharing expertise with partners and strengthening sport and education networks
• That we must go further to promote the importance of young people as future Olympians, future sports teachers and administrators
• That Olympic sponsors, in fulfilling their sponsorship objectives, should have the opportunity to support partnerships such as International Inspiration, which can reach millions of young people
• And that this baton should be handed on to future Olympic Games’ organising committees.

As ever, these big ambitions are understood through the lives, the experiences and the stories of individuals. So I would like to conclude by talking about a young man who came to London from Sierra Leone, separated from his parents after the war.

He arrived in London at nine years old, unable to make sense of this strange new city where he was, in effect, an orphan. He recreated the family he had lost by getting involved in gangs and crime until he was, as he put it, ‘picked up’ by the Prince’s Trust, the foundation sponsored by the Prince of Wales.

Over time, he found a different way of understanding himself and his ambition. He is now a young apprentice working in the Olympic Park, building the Olympic Park in east London.

As he said to an audience only a few weeks ago: “My life is changed. Because of the Olympics, I am very proud of myself, and I am very optimistic about my future.”

We are guardians of that. Let us make the most of it.

Biography of the Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office, the Olympics and London and Paymaster General

Prior to the General Election of 1997, Tessa was the Spokesperson on Health (1994–95 and 1996–97); Opposition Spokesperson for Women (1995–96); and Opposition Whip (1994–95). Before her election to Parliament in 1992, Tessa had a career in psychiatric social work, social policy and public-sector management and innovation.