New Delhi 2010: the Commonwealth Games and the Commonwealth

Ladies and gentlemen, we meet at a time – and in a place – of great anticipation.

Today there is no more vital statistic than the number 188.

That is the number of days before the opening ceremony of the 19^th Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

So Shera – the Indian tiger that is the mascot for the Games – is most definitely prowling, and waiting to pounce. And India and the Commonwealth sense a mounting anticipation, not just at the thought of the parading feet of almost 8,000 athletes and officials from 71 nations and territories, circling the track at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium at the opening ceremony on 3^rd October, but also at the thought of the watching eyes - and the attendant thoughts and feelings - of hundreds of millions of television viewers around the world.

What will those people see?

First and foremost, and most obviously, they will see athletic competition, between men and women who are supremely gifted in their chosen sports.

As such, they will see the fruits of years of training and preparation; and they will see the unfolding of a lifetime’s worth of experiences and emotions, rolled into a few days of joy and despair, triumph and failure, camaraderie and rivalry.

Such is the magic of sport, and the fact that both athletes and spectators alike are truly ‘of the moment’ when they take part.

So many of us turn to the back pages of newspapers, and not the front, if we want to be in tune with what enthuses us most.

Second, they will see and experience India.

What things they read about the country–which is bestirring itself.

Since we are citizens of the world, with collective responsibility towards all nations – large and small, rich and poor – the gains of India will be a benefit to the Commonwealth.

The world will see this country as a test case for so many of the Commonwealth’s highest goals, of Democracy, Development and Diversity.

They will see unswerving faith in democracy, in a country with an electorate of over 700 million people.

They will see the results of an extraordinary – and ongoing – exercise in human and economic development, the transformative power of technology, and the sheer energy and spirit of a people.

Observers will also see a colossal and determined undertaking – of making diversity work-in this land of so many different faiths, languages, cultures and regions, without a parallel.

Third, they will see the Commonwealth.

Much as I may sing the praises of the quiet, solid, painstaking work which the Commonwealth does in its member countries all over the world – building skills and capacity, sharing expertise, bringing the best of its strategic thinking and its practical solutions – I am fully aware that the Commonwealth Games are the most visible brand strength of this association of 54 independent countries.

More than that, they are the most scintillating manifestation of the values that we share, and of the ties that bind us.

The Commonwealth Games Federation is just one of nearly 100 organisations round the world which bear the precious name Commonwealth.

An organisation of governments and of peoples, we are – in the words of the Head of the Commonwealth, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – ‘the original world wide web’.

Not for nothing are they called ‘the Friendly Games’.

There would be no Commonwealth Games without a Commonwealth.

A Commonwealth of shared values.

A Commonwealth that moves with its times, in accordance with the aspirations and the needs of its members.

A Commonwealth that tends always to its vulnerable – its poor, its weak, its women, its young people, its small states.

A Commonwealth that works in partnership and looks out on the world: enlightened ‘globalists’, as we say, ‘in a globalising world’.

So this – on three levels – is what the world will see when it turns on its television sets in October.

And how very much we look forward to that!

And how we offer our good wishes and our solidarity with Mr Kalmadi and the Games Organising Committee, with Minister Gill and the Indian Government, and with Mr Fennell and the Commonwealth Games Federation, in acknowledging all that they have done thus far – and all that they must still do – to deliver a Commonwealth Games of which India and the Commonwealth can be proud.

That is the vital preamble for the topic of my remarks today.

My focus is not ‘sport-for-sport’s-sake’.

Rather, my topics are ‘sport-for-all’ and ‘sport-for-development’, and the ways in which Commonwealth member governments can and should further embrace them, and in which the Games themselves can likewise be used to do more.

The Commonwealth has its credentials in saying this.

The cries of Sport-for-all and Sport-for-Development are now irreversibly part of our equation.

When our Commonwealth leaders met in Valletta at the end of 2005, they formally endorsed the power of sport.

I quote: ‘Heads of Government underlined the important role of sport as an effective instrument for community and youth development in terms of building character, discipline, tolerance and friendship, promoting fair and open sporting competition, protecting the integrity of young athletes, and in creating broader opportunities for socio-economic development in the Commonwealth.’

We have started to see the vision made real, with the help of Sports Development Advisers provided by the Governments which have hosted the Commonwealth Games.

This happened first with the UK after the Manchester Games in 2002, then with Australia after Melbourne in 2006, and I am delighted to report that it is about to happen with India in the run-up to Delhi 2010.

In warmly thanking the Government of India for carrying on this invaluable tradition, I hope I can take the opportunity to thank the UK in advance, in relation to Glasgow 2014.

We now have a formal community of Sports Ministers, who have met four times in the margins of both Commonwealth and Olympic Games – the last time was in Beijing in August 2008.

We have established the Commonwealth Advisory Board on Sport - or CABOS - which has assembled two superb bodies of evidence in the form of case studies from five continents, on the best ways that sport can transform societies.

We have also run individual sports projects, from the technical to what you might call the social.

At the technical end, we have funded experts in Regional Anti-Doping Offices recognised by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

And at the social end, I alight on the example of the Commonwealth youth rehabilitation centre in Gulu, Northern Uganda – a centre we have established to bring young people out of the trauma of conflict and into the mainstream of everyday life, where sports plays a very important role.

This work can and must go onwards and upwards, and we look to CABOS, and others here today, to tell us how – by bringing sport into our youth work, both at the policy and the practical level.

But our specific question today is: how do the Games themselves already contribute to this goal?

Or how can they be used to do more?

How can we strengthen the connection between the highly visible ‘high performance sport’ of the Commonwealth Games, and the ultimate goals of ‘sport-for-all’ and ‘sport-for-development’?

We have a ready-made platform of excellence, on which to try and build.

High-performance sport is a long way from sport for all, and there have been ‘legacy’ promises which have fallen short.

We should not be depriving individuals, communities and even nations by giving them insufficient encouragement – funds, training and facilities – to do sport.

The Games are but one – though very important – element of this and should encourage us in this direction.

If we are agreed on the strategic policy, then we should look for funds to match it , whether from national budgets, in the Secretariat’s budget, or somewhere within the budgetings and outputs of the Games themselves.

On the transformative power of sport in young people’s lives,I personally think back to the excellent Commonwealth Sport Development Conference – to be held again in Glasgow in June – where I first saw film footage of mixed teenage football on a dirt field outside a village in very poor, rural Kenya.

It was a scene of ragged t-shirts and bare feet; and not of colourful team strips, and football boots.

But there were teams, rules, goalposts, crowds, and above all coaches, parents and mentors.

Some of the interviews afterwards helped to illuminate the powerful truth that those boys and girls were doing much more than playing football together.

They were learning to respect each other, and to see each other as equals, whose educational opportunities, and sexual behaviours, and health entitlements, and professional prospects, should be the same.

All this, from the simple act of training and playing regularly in the same football team, and knowing the fun and the rewards of honourable sporting competition.

So my hope today is to join you in trying to find new and reinforced ways in which the Games can be ever more attuned to the real needs of a far wider group of people than the top athletes who represent their nations.

Because our real constituency is the hundreds of millions of young and not-so-young people, who are denied the benefits and transformative power of sport.

In doing so, I commend the CGF for the initiatives it has already taken: it, I know, believes implicitly in sport-for-development, and has programmes to demonstrate it.

I commend it especially for introducing the Commonwealth Youth Games, launched in 2000 and celebrated for the third time here in Pune, India, in 2008.

The Youth Games are a powerful example of supporting youth development through sport.

And I also recognise that it is for Commonwealth member governments to respond to the opportunities that are presented by the bid criteria for the Games, which in some instances are obligatory, and in others advisory.

Here, then are two thoughts on enhancing the linkage between the Games themselves, and the two great mantras of ‘sport-for-all’ and ‘sport-for-development’.

First, to reiterate ,it is my hope that we will indeed see a continuation of the unofficial way in which host countries commit to funding and filling the position of Sports Development Adviser in the Secretariat.

That adviser is tasked with working with member governments on strengthening their capacity to offer sport for development.

The support for this position is not an official bid obligation – but it has proved to be one of the clearest signals that host countries see the value of ‘sport-for-all’, far beyond their own borders and sport as a catalyst.

Second, and an extension of this, is our hope that Games host countries can go even further in bringing about ‘sport-for-all’, in countries beyond its borders, at the grass-roots level, ‘in-country’.

Here, there is good and strong precedent, in that the last three Games bids have earmarked funds for each other Commonwealth country, to train and support the teams of athletes which it brings to the Games.

At something like $7 million, this is a huge and a magnanimous commitment.

The challenge is to ask whether that goodwill can go considerably further than the top athletes, and bring sport to ordinary citizens in cities, towns and villages all over the Commonwealth.

This would of course be a significant and visionary goal.

Here there is the inspiring precedent beyond the Commonwealth Games in the example of the UK’s International Inspiration programme, seeking to engage 12 million children in 20 countries in the years leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

And I will conclude with a third suggestion, which is a call to arms for Games host countries, for the Commonwealth Secretariat, for the Commonwealth Games Federation, and indeed for all Commonwealth member countries.

It is this: if the Games are indeed the most recognisable brand of this 54-nation family, then we would be wise to use them to tell the biggest and widest possible story about what the Commonwealth is about.

We should use them better, to tell our stories of democracy, and of development, and of diversity.

Of health, and education, and enterprise, and youth, and much more.

We can achieve all this if we use the platform presented by the Games more effectively.

At heart, today is about making a very good thing even better, and reaching ever more people.

That means more, even, than those hundreds of millions of people with whom I began this address: those who will watch the Games on television.

We want to bring the practical and transformative power of sport – as of the wider Commonwealth – into its citizens’ lives.

Thank you.