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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

UWI, CANOC reveal game changing partnership for sports

by

Brian Lewis
498 days ago
20231010
Brian Lewis Things That Matter Logo NEW

Brian Lewis Things That Matter Logo NEW

Over the week­end in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos, the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) held its 21st Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and its 10th an­nu­al Work­shop.

CANOC is al­so cel­e­brat­ing its 20th an­niver­sary. Pri­or to the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Sun­day and Work­shop, the day be­fore, there was a Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Work­shop held from Oc­to­ber 4-5 – a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and CANOC host­ed by the Bar­ba­dos Olympic As­so­ci­a­tion (BOA).

This work­shop en­tailed the “Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Sport for Na­ture, Sports for Cli­mate Change” ac­tion frame­work.

Caribbean Olympic sports lead­ers and del­e­gates heard pre­sen­ta­tions from Julie Duf­fus, the IOC Sus­tain­abil­i­ty man­ag­er, Noemie Metais, Youth, Ed­u­ca­tion and Ad­vo­ca­cy Of­fi­cer, Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme (UN­EP), who pro­vid­ed an overview of her or­gan­i­sa­tion’s work while Hy­acinth Arm­strong-Vaughn, Pro­tect­ed Ar­eas Of­fi­cer at the In­ter­na­tion­al Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture (IUCN), shared in­valu­able in­for­ma­tion on the state of bio­di­ver­si­ty in the Caribbean.

It was a very in­ter­est­ing week.

The dis­cus­sions were thought-pro­vok­ing and might I add frank and hon­est. CANOC’s brave and bold next steps will set the or­gan­i­sa­tion on the right path.

In ad­dress­ing the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed in the con­tem­po­rary en­vi­ron­ment, the CANOC ex­ec­u­tive led by its cur­rent pres­i­dent Kei­th Joseph is tak­ing it to the next lev­el. CANOC as it con­tin­ues the jour­ney in­to the fu­ture is em­brac­ing the changed re­al­i­ties. The or­gan­i­sa­tion is har­ness­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties and fac­ing them in a changed world.

Sport lead­ers, in par­tic­u­lar, those from vul­ner­a­ble small is­land states are in a ver­i­ta­ble war for sur­vival. Sport is un­der siege from forces in­clud­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal, that threat­en the very ex­is­tence of sport as we know it to be. There are those, who have made the de­ci­sion, that they will not change.

Set­ting the agen­da. Set­ting the stage.

CANOC over the week­end took some im­por­tant and far-reach­ing de­ci­sions that will have sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences. CANOC agreed to take the lead with­in the re­gion on “Sport for Cli­mate Change” and “Sport for Na­ture” and to lead the pack on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and sport and hu­man rights. The land­mark sign­ing of a co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), a sign­ing that was wit­nessed by the Ho­n­ourable Charles Grif­fith, Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of Youth, Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty Em­pow­er­ment, Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh, Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Sport signed for UWI with pres­i­dent Joseph do­ing the need­ful for CANOC.

This co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment with UWI and CANOC will change the face and land­scape of the Olympic and Com­mon­wealth sports move­ment. It’s a game-chang­er.

Ear­li­er this year, CANOC re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) Small Is­lands De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) high-lev­el tech­ni­cal meet­ing on the pre­ven­tion of Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NCDs) and Men­tal Health. An im­por­tant em­brace of CANOC’s lead­er­ship po­si­tion. Just as Cari­com and the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank do in their re­spec­tive ar­eas of ex­per­tise. CANOC is em­brac­ing the idea that it must take the lead­er­ship man­tle for chart­ing a new vi­sion for the role of the Olympic and Com­mon­wealth sport move­ment, and the sport in­dus­try in the Caribbean.

The lead­er­ship of CANOC had sev­er­al meet­ings in re­spect of col­lab­o­ra­tions and part­ner­ships. Ar­eas of par­tic­u­lar fo­cus were a sports pol­i­cy map­ping pro­gramme and the es­tab­lish­ment of a CANOC mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and learn­ing strat­e­gy and sys­tem.

Get­ting to 20 years is no easy feat but as CANOC heads in­to the next phase of its his­to­ry, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is full of con­fi­dence that it’s on a pos­i­tive tra­jec­to­ry of re­spect, rel­e­vance and cred­i­bil­i­ty with a loud­er and more in­flu­en­tial voice.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: The views ex­pressed by the writer aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly those of any or­gan­i­sa­tion that he may be as­so­ci­at­ed with.


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