C'wealth Secretariat to help update sports policy
The Ministry for Youth and Sports has finally taken visible initiatives, with technical support from the Commonwealth Secretariat, to update the 1998 sports policy which was hardly followed by any sports authorities in the country over the last 20 years.
Oliver Dudfield, head of sport for peace and development of the Commonwealth Secretariat, and Eion Lendsay, an assistant professor from Durham University, have been in Dhaka the last four days, during which time they met various stakeholders including ministries such as youth and sports, planning, health, women and child, education, social welfare and home. They have also exchanged views with officials of different federations, clubs and districts at a workshop on Monday and talked with different NGOs including Unicef, Brac, Plan Bangladesh and the civil society.
They were scheduled to visit bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan and Manikganj District Sports Association yesterday, but the visit was cancelled due to sudden illness of some of the members of the delegate.
“Now every development programme of the government revolves around SDG [sustainable development goals] and seventh five-year plan, so we want to link the sports policy with SDG, the seventh five-year plan and global interaction. We are taking technical help from the Commonwealth Secretariat, which has been working in 54 nations, to develop the sports policy” said joint secretary Omar Faruque, the responsible person for reviewing the sports policy.
“They have been identifying our good practices, strength, lackings and challenges as they will be involved in policy formation, implementation and monitoring,” Faruque said. “We will soon sign an agreement of TAPP [Technical Assistant Project Proposal] with them for a one-year period during which time frame they will hire a consultancy firm for the final draft of the sports policy.”
Oliver Dudfield said, “We were invited to Bangladesh by the Ministry of Youth and Sports for a very specific purpose. The ministry is undertaking an update on the sports policy, working with all the key stakeholders in the country. The reason for being taken by the secretariat is the focus on contribution that sport can make to non-sport outcomes. And that's a real focus and expertise for the Commonwealth secretariat.”
Dudfiled said that they would need six months to a year to develop of the sports policy.
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