Sport de­vel­op­ment is a con­struct that has been tout­ed a lot dur­ing the last decade in the re­gion. As many Caribbean ath­letes as­sert their dom­i­nance and se­cure medals at the high­est lev­els of in­ter­na­tion­al sport, pub­lic pres­sure has forced many gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er or re­con­sid­er in­vest­ments in sport de­vel­op­ment. In pur­suit of this, a num­ber of ini­tia­tives have been launched or ex­e­cut­ed. For such ini­tia­tives to be mean­ing­ful, there is a need to un­der­stand what sport de­vel­op­ment is.

Ba­si­cal­ly, sport de­vel­op­ment en­tails the im­ple­men­ta­tion of sys­tems, in­fra­struc­ture and poli­cies that seek to fa­cil­i­tate par­tic­i­pa­tion in sport, as well as the es­tab­lish­ment of path­ways for the con­tin­u­ous de­vel­op­ment of ath­letes and/or sport in­fra­struc­ture. Giv­en the fact that many of the ju­ris­dic­tions in the Caribbean are of dif­fer­ent sizes, pop­u­la­tions and so­cio-eco­nom­ic stages of de­vel­op­ment, one can in­fer that the fine de­tails of sport de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes may vary from one ju­ris­dic­tion to an­oth­er.

The re­al­i­ty is that the coun­tries of the Caribbean are at dif­fer­ent stages in the con­tin­u­um of sport de­vel­op­ment. What may be con­sid­ered as sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment in one ju­ris­dic­tion may not be con­sid­ered so in an­oth­er that may be way up a con­tin­u­um. It is im­por­tant to note that this con­tin­u­um has no fi­nite end be­cause the more de­vel­op­ment there is, the more there will be to achieve. Hence, even in the most ad­vanced coun­tries of the world, sport de­vel­op­ment ex­ists to fa­cil­i­tate im­proved per­for­mances by their ath­letes. Through­out the Caribbean, there are in­vest­ments in sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture, pro­gram­ming, ath­lete wel­fare and fund­ing, and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing pro­grammes. In most in­stances, mil­lions are spent on these projects. How­ev­er, the ques­tion is: to what end? If one were to ask the sport ad­min­is­tra­tors in each of the ju­ris­dic­tions whether or not they have seen sport de­vel­oped over the last decade, the an­swer would most like­ly be in the af­fir­ma­tive. In fact, sta­tis­tics on pro­grammes, ath­lete achieve­ments, in­fra­struc­ture and in­vest­ments in sport would be put for­ward in de­fence of their an­swer. But for their an­swers to be ac­cu­rate, there would be a need to eval­u­ate their per­for­mances in the fol­low­ing ar­eas:

Sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture

Pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works

Ath­lete de­vel­op­ment

Ca­pac­i­ty build­ing

Ad­min­is­tra­tion/mon­i­tor­ing and man­age­ment

Fund­ing and fi­nan­cial arrange­ments

Sport-spe­cif­ic pro­gram­ming, and;

A sys­tem of/for sus­tain­able re­cruit­ment and pro­gres­sion

Sport­ing In­fra­struc­ture

Any dis­cus­sion of sport de­vel­op­ment must start with the avail­abil­i­ty of ba­sic sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture to ser­vice the needs of the var­i­ous sport­ing dis­ci­plines in a ju­ris­dic­tion. The lev­el of de­vel­op­ment would be de­pen­dent on the as­pi­ra­tions of the ad­min­is­tra­tion with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sport. For in­stance, if one in­tends to achieve ex­cel­lence at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el, those fa­cil­i­ties should be of an in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, to fa­cil­i­tate train­ing ses­sions and games/match­es. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there should be enough fa­cil­i­ties to meet the de­mands of stake­hold­ers and par­tic­i­pants in var­i­ous sport­ing dis­ci­plines.

Pol­i­cy and Reg­u­la­to­ry Frame­work

Just as any type of con­struc­tion or de­vel­op­ment re­quires de­tailed plans, so too does sport de­vel­op­ment. The var­i­ous com­po­nents that make up the sport­ing frame­work must work in sync with each oth­er. There should be no dis­con­nect among the stake­hold­ers. There should be an over­ar­ch­ing plan to which in­di­vid­u­als can sub­scribe and align their op­er­a­tions to, in or­der to en­sure that the na­tion­al man­date is be­ing pur­sued. That is the na­ture of sport pol­i­cy. Sub­se­quent to the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al man­date, there has to be reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work im­ple­ment­ed to steer stake­hold­ers in the di­rec­tion of the na­tion­al strat­e­gy. If this reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work is not in­sti­tut­ed, then there would be no in­cen­tive for any­one to fol­low or adopt the pol­i­cy man­dates.

Ath­lete De­vel­op­ment

In the Caribbean, many are of the opin­ion that a gov­ern­ment’s oblig­a­tion is to pro­vide for na­tion­al ath­letes who rep­re­sent the coun­try (am­a­teurs), whilst those ath­letes who break in­to the elite sphere and are, there­fore, ca­pa­ble of pro­vid­ing for them­selves, should not be the af­fair of the state. Oth­ers ar­gue that ath­letes should be catered for, no mat­ter their lev­el, as their achieve­ments in­ter­na­tion­al­ly re­dound to the ben­e­fits of the state and fa­cil­i­tate na­tion­al pride and co­he­sion. What­ev­er po­si­tion one may wish to em­brace, the state should, at very least, em­ploy a sys­tem that fo­cus­es on tal­ent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at all lev­els, with mea­sures de­signed to de­vel­op the said tal­ent through high-per­for­mance train­ing to the elite lev­el. An ab­sence of an ath­lete de­vel­op­ment frame­work sig­nals a state’s or a coun­try’s lack of sport de­vel­op­ment as­pi­ra­tions and man­dates.

Ca­pac­i­ty Build­ing

Ca­pac­i­ty build­ing is one of the most im­por­tant as­pects of sport de­vel­op­ment. Imag­ine try­ing to build a sky­scraper with­out qual­i­fied work­men or trade spe­cial­ists on­board to guide that project. In a sim­i­lar fash­ion, plan­ning sport de­vel­op­ment with­out qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als with the knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence to guide that de­vel­op­ment thrust will re­sult in fail­ure. The lev­el of ca­pac­i­ty build­ing need­ed is de­pen­dent on the in­tend­ed lev­el of de­vel­op­ment. There should be com­pe­tent ad­min­is­tra­tors, tech­ni­cians and sup­port pro­fes­sion­als to sus­tain every lev­el of de­vel­op­ment.

With­out skilled ex­perts in sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture, it is im­pos­si­ble to build world-class or stan­dard fa­cil­i­ties. With­out skilled ad­min­is­tra­tors, there will be de­fi­cient poli­cies and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works. With­out the sup­port spe­cial­ists (coach­es, nu­tri­tion­ists, psy­chol­o­gists, phys­io­ther­a­pists etc.), it would be im­pos­si­ble to de­vel­op elite or high-per­form­ing ath­letes and ath­lete de­vel­op­ment would be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed.

Ad­min­is­tra­tion/Mon­i­tor­ing and Man­age­ment

In or­der to avoid dis­con­nect­ed­ness in pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion, there has to be an in­sti­tu­tion that over­sees na­tion­al pol­i­cy, as well as the man­age­ment of the var­i­ous sub-com­po­nents of the na­tion­al frame­work. In most in­stances, this falls up­on the min­istry with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sport. In some in­stances, this du­ty is shared by oth­er statu­to­ry com­pa­nies or or­gan­i­sa­tions, which are over­seen by such min­istries. No mat­ter what sys­tem is em­ployed, the de­vel­op­men­tal as­pi­ra­tions should in­form the op­er­a­tions of the rel­e­vant min­istry. A min­istry should be suf­fi­cient­ly staffed with com­pe­tent in­di­vid­u­als and suf­fi­cient de­part­ments to over­see the na­tion­al frame­work. If im­ple­ment­ing agen­cies are em­ployed, both in­sti­tu­tions should have enough in­di­vid­u­als and de­part­ments to su­per­vise the key ar­eas. A min­istry with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sport should have de­part­ments that mon­i­tor, man­age and/or co­or­di­nate fa­cil­i­ties (sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture); de­vel­op, im­ple­ment and en­force pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tions; mon­i­tor and man­age sys­tems for ath­lete de­vel­op­ment; man­age or pro­vide over­sight to rel­e­vant train­ing agen­cies; pro­vide in­stru­ments for ca­pac­i­ty build­ing at the var­i­ous lev­els of the na­tion­al sport­ing frame­work in ad­di­tion to pro­vid­ing over­sight and man­age­ment of oth­er key ar­eas.

Fund­ing and Fi­nan­cial Arrange­ments

A key as­pect for gaug­ing the lev­el of sport de­vel­op­ment is the ex­is­tence of fund­ing and fi­nan­cial arrange­ments, de­tail­ing how sport will be fi­nanced. This is a role that is most­ly held by the par­tic­u­lar min­istry with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sport and, in oth­er in­stances, the statu­to­ry bod­ies or in­sti­tutes es­tab­lished to fa­cil­i­tate pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion. In some cas­es, it is a joint re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the min­istry and the statu­to­ry bod­ies. With­out a sys­tem or pol­i­cy ar­tic­u­lat­ing just how sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ty will be trans­act­ed, none of the sub-com­po­nents would have any in­cen­tive to fo­cus on or be guid­ed by the na­tion­al man­date or pol­i­cy. Key is­sues with­in this sec­tion would in­clude: what is to be fund­ed, how it is to be fund­ed, pro­ce­dures for re­ceiv­ing or ac­cess­ing fund­ing, and the re­port­ing re­quire­ments as­so­ci­at­ed with ob­tain­ing fund­ing.

Sport Spe­cif­ic Pro­gram­ming

This com­po­nent di­rect­ly speaks to the ap­pli­ca­tion of sport. In many in­stances, sport par­tic­i­pa­tion is di­rect­ly cor­re­lat­ed to the ex­is­tence of sport pro­gram­ming. Re­search has shown that coun­tries with suc­cess­ful na­tion­al pro­grammes have high­er lev­els of sport pro­gram­ming at every na­tion­al lev­el. When we speak of sport-spe­cif­ic pro­gram­ming, there are two facets: ca­pac­i­ty build­ing (aca­d­e­m­ic and tech­ni­cal) and par­tic­i­pa­tion. A suc­cess­ful coun­try must have sport pro­gram­ming that cov­ers all facets of so­ci­ety. These in­clude but are not lim­it­ed to:

· In­tro­duc­to­ry sport­ing pro­grammes (Ear­ly child­hood lev­el)

· Pri­ma­ry school pro­grammes

· Sec­ondary school pro­grammes

· Ter­tiary lev­el sport pro­grammes

· Com­mu­ni­ty-based sport pro­grammes (in­clu­sive of recre­ation pro­grammes)

· Ju­nior na­tion­al sport pro­grammes

· Se­nior na­tion­al sport pro­grammes

Such na­tion­al pro­gram­ming en­sures that there are catch­ment ar­eas for tal­ent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as well as de­vel­op­men­tal path­ways for ath­letes.

A sys­tem of/for sus­tain­able re­cruit­ment and pro­gres­sion

A key com­po­nent of sport de­vel­op­ment is the ex­is­tence of a de­vel­op­men­tal path­way. This acts as a self-sus­tain­ing sys­tem where there is on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment and ath­letes nav­i­gate the sys­tem un­til they get to the point of re­tire­ment, up­on which they are re-im­mersed in­to the sys­tem as ei­ther ad­min­is­tra­tors and/or tech­ni­cal of­fi­cials (with ap­pro­pri­ate train­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing).

This al­so en­sures that the sport-for-de­vel­op­ment im­pe­tus is sat­is­fied as phys­i­cal lit­er­a­cy will be prac­ticed by all mem­bers of so­ci­ety, if the pro­grammes are con­duct­ed prop­er­ly. How many times have we wit­nessed per­sons who are past their prime or post sport re­tire­ment age con­stant­ly rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try on na­tion­al teams, sim­ply be­cause there is no one to re­place them? This ex­plains why there are usu­al­ly wide gaps in the suc­cess­es of re­gion­al coun­tries, as the na­tion­al stock is usu­al­ly de­plet­ed and re­plen­ish­ing them takes up to ten years. The ab­sence of this sus­tain­able sys­tem, which is the ba­sic fun­da­men­tal of any sport de­vel­op­ment sys­tem, is very much need­ed in the Caribbean.

When we speak of sport de­vel­op­ment, we need to un­der­stand that sport de­vel­op­ment is a col­lab­o­ra­tive project and a com­bi­na­tion of var­i­ous com­po­nents. Pay­ing at­ten­tion to one, to the detri­ment of oth­ers, is counter-pro­duc­tive and detri­men­tal to what­ev­er may look like ac­com­plish­ments or strides in as­pects of de­vel­op­ment that are priv­i­leged by sport ad­min­is­tra­tors. For any sport ad­min­is­tra­tors in the re­gion to truth­ful­ly an­swer the ques­tion as to whether or not they have seen sport de­vel­oped over the last decade, they would need to eval­u­ate their achieve­ments against the in­di­ca­tors that have been out­lined above.