Senegal

In Senegal, a key need is an inventory of sport related jobs. This is both a result of the explosion of new potential services around sport infrastructures and facilities and the need to reorganize properly the sport jobs, which include coaches, social educators/teachers. It offers the opportunity for a joint venture with the direction of employment of the Ministry of Labor. It is also part a broader review related to the "legislation cadre" of sports in the country.

At the project level, considering the technical capacity acquired by the country for sport small manufactures (volley-nets, balls, etc?), the need is to turn this capacity into services that would become sustainable in generating income. Besides, the projects should be systematically strengthened with a micro credit insurance scheme to ensure sustainability to the process.

Partnerships should be reinforced around pool of sport federations and by category (water, martial arts and others). This can enhance the capacities of each federation, for example by providing services to each other (fishing able to repair boats for rowing; karate schools to serve also for regular education in rural areas) that would in turn be able to generate incomes for their activities and sport events. Coaching should be reinforced throughout not only by the academies.

Albania

In Albania, at the conclusion of three days workshop, the participants to the workshop recognized the essential role of sport for youth social and economic development, established a national network of sport and development partners, identified areas of common interest and activities to be implemented in Albania. These areas include: 1) youth and sport in the development agendas 2) advocacy, sensitization, info sharing, media and volunteerism 3) Human rights, equal opportunities, and gender 4) youth and sports supporting local/community development 5) youth sports and arts 6) health, prevention and work conditions 7) youth sports and job opportunities, service providers and physical well being 8) youth sports and education, training and coaching 9) youth sports and infrastructure.

Within each area a set of activities have been identified by the partners for example specific sport events linked to tourism development at the local level, development of educational tools for kids at school using sport as a vehicle, sport and fitness for workers so as to reduce health related problems at work, coaching education and certification so that coaches develop skills needed for dealing with socio-economic issues.

El Salvador

In El Salvador, the Minister of Labor and Social Security took the initiative to carry out, with the support of the ILO, a workshop on social insertion through Sport as a Cabinet initiative in consultation with the National Olympic Committee of El Salvador (COES) who forcefully declared that enlarging the basis of sport practitioners in the country would have effects on the development of services and jobs for the youth. The 45 participants to the workshop held in January 2005, recommends at the policy level, among others:

• Reforming the General Law of Sport, for re-opening of the School of Physical Education and Sports (which is the instance that takes charge of the sports teacher's training).
• Reducing health risk, related to the lack of physical and sportive activity through massive campaigns of awareness of sport and physical activities.
• Establishing an incentive scheme that develops sponsors for enabling high performance athletes to compete well in international competition

And at the project level:

• Unifying actions with the local and municipal governments to increase the practice of the sport.
• Developing in the labour centres of the Ministry of Labour, services and jobs related with the sport, environment, sport and tourism and high performance.
• Establishing a network of strategic partnerships with the purpose of optimize the resources, the capacities and the implementation of programs (public, private and academics).

Two immediate steps were taken following the workshop: a convention signed with the Secretariat of the Youth and another with the Ministry of Labor by the COES to officially acknowledge sport as a major actor of the new youth development policy of the country and to review the capacities of the recreational centers for workers that are actually run by the Ministry of Labor and are often used by Sport federations for training and competitions. This would be a starting point for the reclassification of the sites into a sport service oriented facility that would create jobs and services.

Mozambique

In Mozambique, following an assessment conducted with the IOC in June 2003 some 20 women were trained to run and work for a cooperative. Almost 200 school uniforms for children (in total 552 pairs) were produced by the cooperative of women set up by the project in the first two months of the activities following the training.

The creation of the Cooperative responds to a need expressed by the population of Mabanja outside Boane Sport Center (some 100 km away from Maputo). The National Olympic Committee of Mozambique realized that without an increase of income and the opportunity to strengthening the local capacity the Boane Center could never be managed by the population becoming self-sustained. The ILO was therefore called upon to provide expertise in capacity building and cooperative development, among others.

The training has also offered the opportunity to link the rural area of Mabanja with the local development agency of Matola opening a perspective for a new market and economic synergies. The group of women will be able to act as a resource for social mobilization on HIV prevention. Clearly this is a project level implication but can expand his reach through a training/facilitation scheduled to take place over the next months.