In the Basketball Artists School in Windhoek, Namibia, boys dribble large multicoloured balls to the rhythmic beat of a drum. You can see straight away how much they are enjoying themselves. German sports expert Frank Albin came up with the idea of combining basketball with African music as a way of kindling enthusiasm for sport – and for education. The Basketball Artists School helps kids who would otherwise have little chance of getting an education. “Education first, basketball second” is the guiding principle. Albin is in Namibia for two years to build up sustainable project structures there. This project is made possible by the German Federal Foreign Office’s international sports cooperation programme. The basketball school in Namibia is one of 13 ongoing, long-term projects. Other projects include, for example, rebuilding football infrastructure and promoting girls’ football in Afghanistan, training athletics coaches in Tanzania, and advising SAFA, the South African Football Association.
Development through sport – a good idea and the basic idea behind some 1,300 long- and short-term projects carried out by the Federal Foreign Office in over 100 countries since 1961. Its partner organizations are the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), the German Football Association (DFB), the German Athletics Association (DLV) and the Sports University in Leipzig. The Federal Foreign Office allocates over five million euros a year to international sports cooperation.
In the year of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and in the run-up to the Women’s World Cup in 2011, international cooperation in sport is a special focus of Germany’s foreign cultural and educational policy in 2010. Under the motto: “People on the move – overcoming borders”, sports cooperation can also be a way of meeting foreign-policy objectives. For example, it can contribute to conflict prevention and conflict management, and promote the development of civil-society structures in young democracies and developing countries. The focus is primarily on popular sports. For many traumatized children and young people in developing countries in particular, sport is a unique opportunity to experience community spirit, develop self-confidence, and find a new perspective on life.
“Our sports cooperation programme is bringing people together all over the world,” says Werner Wnendt, deputy head of the Culture and Communication Directorate-General in the Federal Foreign Office. “At the same time we can do a lot to promote a positive image of Germany abroad. Sport can do more for a nation’s image than almost any other field of activity.” People can directly experience the fact that Germany stands for the values they experience in sport – such as creativity, zest for life and cosmopolitan attitudes. For some years, the main focus of international sports cooperation has been in Africa. Approximately 70% of the resources go there, and currently there are 10 long-term projects being implemented under the leadership of German sports teachers. In particular, Wnendt praises the commitment of the foreign experts and sports trainers: “You might say they are our ambassadors in tracksuits.”
The deployment of these special “ambassadors” is coordinated by Katrin Merkel, head of the Department for International Relations DOSB. From Frankfurt am Main, she and her three staff members maintain contact with the German coaches and trainers who travel all over the globe as sports development-aid workers with the support of their professional associations. “Until a few years ago the budget was only enough for two to four long-term projects a year,” says Merkel, but she is pleased that: “In the meantime the funding and the number of long-term projects have more than trebled.” She says it has now been recognized that quite significant effects can be achieved with comparatively little funding through sport. In 2009, roughly 3.3 million euros were spent on projects in the various countries. With an additional two million euros, the Federal Foreign Office supports the training of sportsmen and women, coaches, trainers and sports organizers from developing and emerging countries in Germany. Especially the DFB sports schools in Hennef and Ruit, the University of Leipzig and the training school of the German Athletics Federation (DLV) in Mainz offer tailor-made programmes. For example, from March to July 2009, Leipzig offered courses for athletics trainers in Arabic, for disabled-sport coaches in English, football coaches in French and volleyball coaches in Spanish. About a dozen coaches are trained in Mainz every year. They also learn German in intensive courses at the same time.
The double strategy of offering help in Germany as well as sending experts abroad is not limited to the specific sport itself. “We try to take a holistic approach,” says Katrin Merkel. “Our pool of experts aims to train people both for the professional management of sports associations and for organizing competitions. We would like the people we train to be able to work in various ways as advisors and multipliers in the field of sport in their home countries.” Sustainability plays an especially important role in all international sports cooperation initiatives – as does close collaboration with the respective partner organizations in the countries.
Cooperation with the German sports experts is very popular in many countries. The often enquire about projects directly at German embassies abroad. These requests are then forwarded to the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, and ultimately discussed with the DOSB. Subsequently the “Interministerial Committee” decides once a year which projects can be financed and implemented. “Of course, not everything is always possible,” Merkel explains, and mentions a project that had already been accepted – but it was suddenly impossible to reach the contact persons. It has also happened that aid could not be given because no one with an adequate knowledge of French was available from the German pool of experts at the desired time. The political situation also has to be taken into consideration when allocating projects. “We would like to have done something in Yemen or Sri Lanka,” says Merkel, “but the situation there was and is too unstable. We are responsible for the safety of our experts. And we have to fulfil that responsibility.” In addition to constant email and telephone contact with the envoys in countries as far apart as Burkina Faso and Vietnam, the coaches have to submit a written report about their work to the DOSB every four months. According to Katrin Merkel, this intensive exchange is important especially in the long-term projects. “We have to monitor them to see if an extension is worthwhile.”
Some reports really radiate the enthusiasm the sports development-aid workers have for their work. Maren Graef, volleyball expert and former lecturer at the German Sports University in Cologne, writes about a successful volleyball project she ran with primary school children in Cameroon: “Volleyball is only the medium through which quite different things can be learned: being fair and honest, wanting to achieve an aim and finding ways both to make it possible, learning how to avoid failure, asking questions and demanding answers, developing plans for the future. That was where the real meaning of this project lay.”//
