By Parker Narteh
Ghana has been selected as one of the five countries to form the first phase of the newly initiated Community Sport and Health Cooperation between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) with PATH as the implementers.
Speaking at a Ghana Olympic Committee Multi-Stakeholders meeting on Sport, Physical activities and health forum held today, the GOC president said
“As President of the Olympic Movement in Ghana, I am particularly excited about this initiative as it falls in line with the Olympic Values and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)3, which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
This new collaboration between the International Olympics Committee and The Programme For Appropriate Technology In Health (PATH) will increase access to health-enhancing community sport activities for over one million people across the five countries by the year 2025.
The global optimism for sport, which is one of the important enabler for the SDGs by the United Nations appears in many countries’ policy documents.
In Ghana, sport is linked to the social dimension of the SDGs. But the acknowledgement of the potential of sport as an enabler alone cannot be a decisive evidence of deep commitment or successful implementation.
The positive and direct effects of Olympism 365 is to engage in regular physical activity which will prevent several chronic or Non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, obesity, osteoporosis and depression.
Reports from Ghana’s 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth recommended that children between the ages 5 to 17 years should accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily.
The new cooperation with WHO and PATH, will strengthen the role of sport in building healthy and active communities with three main objectives.
With this initiative growing to be one of the flagship program for the IOC it targeted three teamatic areas which is first to
Improve access and retention in targeted community sports and physical activity programmes, thereby supporting more people, particularly women and girls and people from diverse backgrounds and abilities, to be more active.
Secondly to enhance knowledge, understanding of, and appreciation for, the multiple benefits of regular physical activity and sports participation, which will lead to the prevention of non-communicable diseases, improved mental health and well-being and social connections.
Thirdly the Olympism 365 international policy is to Strengthen policy planning and investment in community sport and physical activity participation opportunities and infrastructure as well as the physical activity legacies of the Olympic Games and other Global sport events.
The Ghana Olympic Committee said “Ghana will join and support the full implementation of all the action plans that will be drawn from the stakeholder’s engagement.”
He also made a passionate appeal to the key Partner the Ministries, that is Sports, Health, Education and Local Government, and the various policies and programmes, make a conscious effort to link these policies and programmes to the vision of Olympism 365.
The Associate Director of Olympism 365 Ollie Dudfield said “as leaders in the health sector, sports leaders, actors in the health sector must respond to the lifestyle if the challenge and must as well be focused on the health well being.”
Mr Dudfield called on the entities involved in championing Olympism 365 to have a common agenda in prosecuting this initiative.
