Iain Lindsey

An ‘international movement’? Decentring sport-for-development within Zambian communities

The potential contribution of sport to development within the Global South has recently gained prominence in terms of policy, practice and as a subject of academic interest. Internationally oriented perspectives are predominant both in descriptive and analytic contributions to the emerging sport-for-development literature. Descriptive accounts highlight the importance of international policies, resources and organizational stakeholders. Analytic contributions are aligned with instrumental and hegemonic strands of the mainstream development literature that have been criticized for insufficiently contextualizing development within localities in the Global South. To address this limitation of much existing sport-for-development research, this study of sport and community development in Lusaka, Zambia, was guided by Bevir and Rhodess [(2003). Interpreting British governance. London: Routledge] ‘decentred’ approach and Longs [(2001) Development sociology: actor perspectives. London: Routledge] actor-oriented sociology. Data were primarily collected through 37 interviews with representatives of organizations involved in youth and community development work in two case study communities. Sport was almost universally considered by interviewees to be an important aspect of local development efforts due to its popularity, accessibility and the malleable way it could be used to address complex and locally identified problems. Organizations involved in sport-for-development were primarily indigenous, received limited international input and were more diverse than commonly identified in the existing literature. Particular approaches to sport-for-development both linked to and challenged local cultural values. These findings suggest that the two case study communities represent counterexamples to internationalist perspectives in the sport-for-development literature. Consequently, it is suggested that alternative methodologies may enable a more balanced consideration of the relative influence of local and global aspects on sport-for-development.

Sport and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Zambia: a partnership approach?

Sport is being increasingly recognized for the contribution it can make to the Millennium Development Goals and, in particular, the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In both sport-for-development and HIV/AIDS sectors, partnerships are advocated as an effective approach to achieving policy goals. This exploratory study examined the nature of partnerships involving non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that use sport as a tool for HIV/AIDS prevention in Zambia. Sensitized by development literature, the study utilized an inductive, qualitative research approach primarily centred on interviews with key stakeholders from a variety of governmental and non-governmental agencies both based in Zambia and supporting sport-for-development programmes from overseas. A large number of different partnerships were identified by interviewees that varied significantly in terms of their purpose and form. Within the Zambian sport-for-development sector, organizational fragmentation and competition for resources provided by overseas agencies inhibited the development of partnerships aimed at policy co-ordination across the whole sector. Productive bilateral partnerships existed between sport-for-development NGOs and between these organizations and health-based NGOs. However, the sport-development sector lacked integration into more strategic partnerships that addressed HIV/AIDS policy issues. Incremental progress is identified as the key to future improvements in partnerships involving sport-for-development NGOs. Further research that examines how partnerships influence the delivery of programmes within specific communities would also enhance understanding of the contribution of sport to development efforts.

Conceptualising sustainability in sports development

Sustainability is a concept that has become ubiquitous in sports development policy and practice. Despite this ubiquity, there remains a lack of clarity in practical understandings of the concept of sustainability. Moreover, research on sport and sustainability is limited and lacks theoretical underpinning. This article addresses these problems by proposing frameworks that can be used to examine and understand sustainability in sports development. In particular, two frameworks are developed through synthesising sustainability concepts presented in the literature on health programmes and adapting them to sports development through consideration of recent policies and programmes. The first framework addresses definitional issues by identifying four forms of sustainability that may be addressed by sports development programmes, namely individual, community, organisational and institutional sustainability. The second framework allows classification of processes that affect sustainability according to dimensions that concern the level of control held by agencies responsible for sports development sustainability and the level of integration between processes to achieve desired sports development outcomes and processes to achieve sustainability. Presentation of a case study of sustainability in the New Opportunities for PE and Sport Activities programme in Scotland enables discussion of the applicability of the frameworks to sports development as well as identification of implications that are derived from application of the frameworks. On the basis of this analysis, conclusions are drawn concerning the relationships between different forms of sustainability and the effectiveness of sports development programmes and the types of processes that affect different forms of sustainability. The implications for future research on sports development sustainability are discussed.

Sport policy in Britain.

Since 1990, Britain has seen a period of unprecedented public investment in, and political commitment to, sport. In this book, Iain Lindsey and Barrie Houlihan examine and analyze sport policy since the appointment of John Major as leader of the Conservative Party in 1990. John Major’s period as Prime Minister was a watershed in British sport policy marking the beginning of a prolonged period of public and lottery investment and relatively high political salience. The text also locates Labour sport policy not only in relation to the previous government of John Major, but also in relation to the Labor government’s broader concerns and ambitions related to modernization of British institutions, its ambition to tackle the ‘wicked issues’ epitomized by its focus on achieving greater social inclusion, and its interest in facilitating greater stakeholder involvement in the policy process. Lindsey and Houlihan provide the first analysis that examines sport policy as a field of government and that discusses how the various sectors (e.g. youth/school sport, mass sport, etc.) have been affected by government policy and the competition for public resources.

Collaboration in local sport services in England: issues emerging from case studies of two local authority areas

Encouraging collaboration has been a central component of the Labour governments drive to modernise the delivery of public services and has been a key facet of recent sport policy in England. The proliferation of different forms of collaboration represents a reaction to the changes instigated by previous Conservative governments, which created a fragmented and congested state in which management approaches were based on competition and the value for money delivered by individual governmental agencies. However, the research literature on collaboration is somewhat limited by a lack of definitional clarity and is also characterised by the diversity of theoretical approaches that have been utilised. Research on collaboration in sport also remains in its infancy. To begin to address this limitation, case studies of collaboration between agencies involved in sport and physical activity for young people in two urban local authority areas are presented. The case studies provide evidence of the importance of such collaborations where there are a variety of sporting agencies that operate in changing local contexts.

Where’s the “Evidence?” Reflecting on Monitoring and Evaluation within Sport-for-Development

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this chapter is to critically examine the extensive calls for enhanced evidence within the sport-for-development field. The chapter questions whether these are appropriate and realistic. Design/methodology/approach The chapter utilizes current literature to deconstruct the assumptions that increased evidence will legitimize the field of sport-for-development, improve practice and enhance future policy. The authors’ own experiences, working as external evaluators, are also drawn upon to critique the value of current “evidence.” Findings The chapter illustrates how current calls for evidence are somewhat misguided and are unlikely to fully realize the intended consequence of validating sport-for-development or improving future practice. Utilizing personal reflections, the impact that Global North/Global South power imbalances have on data is discussed, suggesting that this will rarely lead to data that provide a detailed understanding of work in practice. Research limitations/implications The chapter builds on the work of other authors illustrating the importance of disconnecting research from evidence and monitoring and evaluation in the sport-for-development field. Originality/value The chapter utilizes previous literature but also provides a rarely available personal perspective on the issue of evidence that continues to permeate the rationale behind undertaking research within sport-for-development.

Governance in sport-for-development: Problems and possibilities of (not) learning from international development

The lack of attention towards issues of governance in both global sport-for-development (SfD) policy and academic literature is placed in stark relief when compared to the significance accorded to such issues in international development. This article addresses this lacuna in sport-for-development by drawing on international development literature as well as interview data from representatives of international agencies, domestic governments and in-country non-governmental organisations involved with sport-for-development in Ghana and Tanzania. As previously recognised in other development sectors, the commonality of narrow, project-based approaches in sport-for-development contributes to excessive donor influence, fragmentation, competition and limits both impact and sustainability. It was in response to similar problems that, from the mid-1990s, Sector-Wide Approaches were instigated within specific sectors in particular countries as a more systematic model of development governance based on leadership by the domestic government and co-ordination among donors and other stakeholders. Although interviewees’ perspectives and some exemplar sport-for-development initiatives aligned with key features of Sector-Wide Approaches, significant challenges to their effective instigation in sport-for-development can be identified. Nevertheless, examining the applicability of Sector-Wide Approaches to sport-for-development raises important issues that require further consideration and demonstrates the necessity that sport-for-development, more generally, learns from the longer-established field of international development.

Governance of lottery sport programmes: national direction of local partnerships in the New Opportunities for PE and Sport programme

Despite the importance of National Lottery funding for the provision of local sporting opportunities in England, research concerning the implications of the central governance of Lottery funded programmes has been limited. Drawing on theories of governance and governmentality, the research presented in this paper focused specifically on the Big Lottery Funds governance of local partnerships in the New Opportunities for PE and Sport (NOPES) programme. Qualitative data collection enabled comparison of national aspirations for, and governance of, local partnerships with actual partnerships in three case studies. This analysis demonstrated that local contexts influenced local partnerships to a greater degree than the Big Lottery Funds governance of the NOPES programme. The degree of specificity in national aspirations for local partnerships as well as the tools available to govern the NOPES programme nationally are used to explain these findings and, as a result, implications for both theoretical and policy development are identified.

In pursuit of evidence-based policy and practice: a realist synthesis-inspired examination of youth sport and physical activity initiatives in England (2002–2010)

During the period from 2002 to 2010, the significance of youth sport to the Labour government in England led to substantial funding for initiatives aimed at increasing young people’s participation in sport and physical activity. In keeping with the government’s rhetoric of evidence-based policy, a plethora of different research reports on specific youth sport initiatives were commissioned. The purpose of this study was to synthesise relevant reports to better understand the implementation of Labour’s youth sport policies and to consider the extent to which insights drawn from these reports could extend understanding of effective approaches to improving young people’s participation in sport and physical activity. Inspired by a ‘realist synthesis’ approach, the research methodology focused attention towards the mechanisms, contexts and outcomes of youth sport initiatives. An iterative six-stage approach guided the identification and analysis of 13 research reports and enabled refinement of an initial programme theory that, drawn from governmental policy, encompassed mechanisms associated with management, use of resources and the provision of activities. In practice, approaches to addressing long-recognised problems in the supply of youth sport opportunities were supported by the scale of nationally provided financial resources and were reported to have some positive impact on participation. However, there were also indications that long-standing inequalities in participation remained resistant to change and this potentially reflected the lack of innovation in youth sport initiatives. Similarly, it is concluded that the politically constrained focus of the research reports limited their potential to contribute to evidence-based policy.

Sport and the sustainable development goals : where is the policy coherence?

This article addresses the urgent need for critical analysis of the relationships between sport and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals enshrined in the United Nations’ global development framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Importantly, there has yet to be any substantial academic exploration of the implications of the position accorded to sport as ‘an important enabler’ of the aims of 2030 Agenda and its broad set of Sustainable Development Goals. In beginning to address this gap, we draw on the concept of policy coherence for two reasons. First, the designation of a specific Target for policy coherence in the 2030 Agenda is recognition of its centrality in working towards Sustainable Development Goals that are considered as ‘integrated and indivisible’. Second, the concept of policy coherence is centred on a dualism that enables holistic examination of both synergies through which the contribution of sport to the Sustainable Development Goals can be enhanced as well as incoherencies by which sport may detract from such outcomes. Our analysis progresses through three examples that respectively focus on: the common orientation of the Sport for Development and Peace ‘movement’ towards education-orientated objectives aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 4; potential synergies between sport participation policies and the Sustainable Development Goal 3 Target for reducing non-communicable diseases; and practices within professional football in relation to several migration-related Sustainable Development Goal Targets. These examples show the relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals across diverse sectors of the sport industry and illustrate complexities within and across countries that make pursuit of comprehensive policy coherence infeasible. Nevertheless, our analyses lead us to encourage both policy makers and researchers to continue to utilise the concept of policy coherence as a valuable lens to identify and consider factors that may enable and constrain various potential contributions of sport to a range of Sustainable Development Goals.