Rome, April 6, 2016 – we learn from Peace&Sport, the organisation in Monaco chaired by Joel Bouzou and under the high patronage of HSH Prince Albert II, that this year some 115 different events are being organised all over Europe within the framework of the UN International Day of Sport for Development.

Sport has shown itself to be a cost-effective and flexible tool in promoting peace and development objectives, recalled the UN yesterday, April 6, on the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, celebrated all over the world.

It was indeed on 23 August 2013, that the sixty-seventh session of the UN General Assembly decided to proclaim 6 April a special day for Peace and Sport, with reference to the Declaration of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and sport’s role for social progress, where it is further acknowledged that “Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. We recognize the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and respect and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and of young people, individuals and communities as well as to health, education and social inclusion objectives.”

For these reasons, states the UN, and in particular the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace, all relevant international organizations, and international, regional and national sports organizations, civil society, including non-governmental organizations and the private sector, and all other relevant stakeholders, must cooperate, observe and raise awareness of these topics.

In 2005 the fifty-eighth session of the UN General Assembly also proclaimed an International Year for Sport and Physical Education, to promote education, health, development and peace.