In 2017, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, through the Division for Inclusive Social Development (DESA/DISD), was mandated to advance sport as a means to achieve development and peace (SDP). Thus, DESA/DISD developed a programme of technical cooperation and capacity development to support Member States in this regard.
During the first phase of this project in 2020, virtual workshops were held in four African countries and contributed to the development of an outline of an SDP UN toolkit. Between 2020 and 2022 the project completed eight training modules on identified, most relevant issue areas that should be addressed in a UN training toolkit based on input from experts and member states. A validation workshop in Zimbabwe in November 2022 reviewed all modules of the SDP toolkit and it was finalized.
DESA/DISD conducted a pilot training of government officials and other key stakeholders based on the SDP toolkit in a national training workshop in Ghana in 2023 upon a request from Government of Ghana. For 2024, the Governments of South Africa and Namibia requested capacity building workshops based on several modules of the UN SDP toolkit.