With fairness, tolerance and peaceful competition as its backbone, sport is a popular way to promote international understanding. The  German Foreign Minister unveiled the Sport and Foreign Policy 2010 initiative earlier this year as a peace policy instrument, helping to bolster conflict prevention and management.

At this year’s Sports Ball, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle unveiled the Sport and Foreign Policy 2010 initiative. “Sport teaches how to deal with conflict fairly. In conflict regions, sport can foster trust between former adversaries. Sport builds bridges – across linguistic, political and cultural borders.”

With the motto “People on the Move – Overcoming Borders”, the German Foreign Office is shifting the public focus to its international sport promotion. This includes in particular its decades-long efforts to establish and extend recreational sport in developing countries and crisis areas.
Since 1961, international sport promotion has aimed to use the positive impact of sport to break down prejudice, strengthen minorities and thus make a major contribution to international understanding.

Events in 2010 Enlarge image Rwandan youngsters from NGO Esperance play football as part of the Youth Development through Football program. YDF is active in 10 African countries. (© YDF) The sporting year 2010 is dominated by two major events, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Once more people from different nations and cultures are together celebrating the success of their sporting idols and consoling each other in the face of bitter defeat. That is why international sport promotion focuses particularly on anchoring the peacemaking message of sport more firmly in people’s minds.

In addition to the planned short and long-term projects, a number of events are being staged to showcase the work of international sport promotion and foster international understanding.

In the run-up to the World Cup, the exhibition “African Arenas” by the photographer Thomas Hoeffgen is being shown (April 29 to June 2, 2010). During the World Cup, an exhibition is planned in the Atrium of the Foreign Office outlining commitment to sport promotion through the decades.

Together with the German Football Association, the Foreign Office is also organizing the tournament “4 Countries for Peace” with youth teams from Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to be held using the “Football for Peace” rules. The teams, which have an equal number of male and female players, commit to the principle of fair play and play without a referee while only female players are allowed to score goals. The tournament is based on an educational instrument developed for football by the Rwandan NGO ESPERANCE.

The Foreign Office is also supporting a women’s football tournament in Germany with the project Discover Football from July 6 -13, 2010 in Berlin. Selected teams from around the world are taking part who have faced social resistance or have been involved in intercultural efforts or other social engagement. A cultural programme is to underscore the bonding nature of the tournament.