Paper short abstract:

This paper situates the inclusion of sport in the Sustainable Development Goals in the broader context of the emergence and growth of the Sport for Development and Peace sector, and seeks to identify the causes and key actors that explain this inclusion.

Paper long abstract:

Paragraph 37 of the declaration accompanying the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals states: "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". This paper seeks to situate this inclusion of sport in the SDGs in the broader context of the emergence of the Sport for Development and Peace sector over the past two decades, and to explain how sport, perhaps surprisingly, came to feature in this important global policy declaration. In doing so, it identifies both the key factors that might explain the turn to sport in global development policy and the actors who have been crucial to the promotion of sport as a potential enabler of development.