How can we think about tackling the problem of neighborhood insecurity in Haiti today without real public policies focused on sport?
Haiti has been going through a multifaceted crisis for several years now. This crisis which took on another dimension with the assassination of the former President of the Republic, Jovenel Moiseon the night of July 6 to 7, 2021 has become more complex in recent months by gang violence leading to the resignation of the former de facto Prime Minister, Ariel Henry.
After several days of procrastinationthe Presidential Transitional Council (CPT) which took the reins of the Country to fill the vacancy noted in the highest judiciary of the State, since the death of the President, decided to appoint a new Prime Minister, Gary Conille, in replacement of Mr. Henry.
Prime Minister Garry Conille received the amplification of the decree of his appointment, Monday June 3, 2024, at the Villa d’Acceuil, in Musseau. | © Jean Feguens Regala/AyiboPost
In relation to the many challenges of the moment, voices, some very important, are beginning to be seriously raised to demand a reduction in the number of ministries called upon to constitute the next ministerial cabinet.
In this perspective, the Ministry responsible for Sports is particularly targeted. The priorities of the moment being Security, Peace, Justice, the Economy, Elections… there would therefore be no places for sport.
This thought, which seems to be dominant within public opinion, however, does not take into account either current issues or what sport is, in reality. This is exactly what we will endeavor to demonstrate in this article.
Haiti, a country in crisis…
If there is something that does not need to be demonstrated so much, it is obvious, it is the execrable situation in which Haiti finds itself at the moment. A crisis that is getting worse and worse every day, taking on unimaginable proportions.
Of all these crises, it is the one linked to security which is undoubtedly the most worrying. Because, not only does it influence other realities, but also it greatly threatens lives and property and with them, the very existence of our State.
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According to a UN report, cited in an article published on the Institution’s website, Haiti is in the grip of a cataclysmic situation.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also cited: “Gang violence left 4,451 dead and 1,668 injured last year. And just in the first three months of 2024, through March 22, 1,554 people were killed and 826 injured.” While we are at the beginning of June, these figures should trend in the wrong direction, because nothing concrete has been done so far to stop the bleeding.
Added to this security crisis are health, social, economic, political, identity and other crises, which make the daily lives of Haitians very difficult, even unbearable. Which obviously opens the way to a migration crisis. Between internal displacements and those who attempt to leave for abroad, by various and varied routes, the country is also losing part of its youth and its intelligentsia, therefore, its living force.
It is therefore, in this apocalyptic context – and the word is not too strong – that current and future leaders must and will have to assume their heavy responsibilities.
Faced with this immense challenge, they immediately want to make big decisions. In their eyes, dismissing the Ministry responsible for Sports seems to be one of them. Which is in many ways, if not all ways, a “big mistake”.
Sport, an instrument in the service of development and Peace…
One of the first reasons put forward to justify this announced death of the Ministry responsible for Sports from national priorities for the next two years is because it would not fit in with the other MAJOR PRIORITIES which are Security, National Defense and economic recovery.
However, since 2015, a United Nations resolution has recognized sport as an important partner in sustainable development. This is consistent with the initial conviction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since its creation in 1894 that sport could contribute to development and peace in the world.
Hence the notion of the Olympic truce (which begins seven days before the games and ends seven days after the games), dating back to Antiquity (8th century BC), which consists of the cessation of all hostilities during the period of the Olympic Games.
However, since 2015, a United Nations resolution has recognized sport as an important partner in sustainable development.
Since 1993, the UN General Assembly has supported the IOC by adopting every two years — one year before the games — a resolution entitled: “For the building of a peaceful and better world through sport and ‘Olympic ideal’.
Beyond these theoretical considerations that some would be tempted to minimize, Sport has already demonstrated in contexts as difficult as ours that it is capable of validly playing its role, of being this excellent tool of reconciliation. , peace and social cohesion.
The South African rainbow nation, once torn apart by the apartheid regime, was born through sport during the Rugby World Cup in 1995.
What prompted Nelson Mandela to declare several years later (in 2000): “ sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to unite people in an almost unique way. Sport can create hope where there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. Sport involves all types of discrimination ».
This vision, which could be described as idealistic, is above all that of a man who understood, through his personal experience, the immense power of sport.
Sport has already demonstrated in contexts as difficult as ours that it is capable of validly playing its role, of being this excellent tool for reconciliation, peace and social cohesion.
Ivory Coast, divided in two because of a rebellion, saw its reunification process accelerate thanks to a football match organized in Bouaké in the north of the country in which its legend Didier Drogba took part.
Today, if Côte d’Ivoire is one of the most stable countries in Africa; if this country is the one which recorded the strongest growth in its prosperity globally, between 2011 and 2021, it is largely due to this peace effort made possible thanks to sport.
Georges Weah, former President of Liberia, relied on his notoriety acquired through football to unite the athletes of his country which was emerging from a long and painful civil war.
We will focus on these three examples, but we could cite many more, as there are so many of them in this case.
Sport, a vector of social advancement, integration and awareness…
In addition to its virtues, in terms of sustainable development and peace, sport also plays the role of social elevator and vector of integration and awareness.
In many countries, sports programs constitute a factor in the integration of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and/or from immigrant backgrounds. As such, France, England, Germany, Brazil… are living examples.
In 2015, the World Bank and the Novak Djokovic Foundation established a partnership for early childhood development that emphasized the importance of the first months of life and the need to invest to help disadvantaged children in Serbia. There is no need to point out that Sport is at the heart of these actions, because we are talking about one of the greatest sportsmen in history.
Sport is an instrument for women’s empowerment (SDG 5).
In this regard, we could note the initiative for the education and empowerment of adolescent girls in Nigeria which uses sports competition to change representations and socio-cultural norms and eliminate barriers to girls’ education.
In addition to its virtues, in terms of sustainable development and peace, sport also plays the role of social elevator and vector of integration and awareness.
In Haiti, we see every day, through the exhilarating performances of our national football team for people with disabilities and our talented players — with Melchie Daelle Dumornay on the front line — that sport is capable of lifting people out of poverty. social invisibility to make them valiant ambassadors of the country.
So why should sport retain its ministry?
After all the considerations subsequently made, how can we think of tackling today the problem of insecurity coming from neighborhoods in Haiti without real public policies focused on sport? Are there really Haitian intelligences who think that tanks, helicopters, rifles, soldiers and ammunition will be enough?
We might say that it is not necessary to have a ministry responsible for sports to implement an effective public policy focused on sport? It’s not false at first glance. While we’re at it, let’s also eliminate the Ministry of Public Health, that of the Environment, or even that of Justice or Planning… Let’s stick to this implacable logic, because we don’t need either these ministries to put in place good public policies in health, environmental, judicial and cooperation matters.
Are there really Haitian intelligences who think that tanks, helicopters, rifles, soldiers and ammunition will be enough?
Beyond the field of activity of a ministry, it is necessary to have in the symbolism, the interest that the State grants to it. Eliminating the Ministry of Sports in the current context would amount to saying that sport is not an essential component of Haitian life and that we can easily do without it; whereas, conversely, keeping it would send a clear signal that the Haitian state no longer intends to minimize sport and that it finally understands its many dimensions, particularly its capacity to generate a social and economic impact. For this, it is necessary to think more about the development of the sector than about its extinction.
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Rémy Rioux, Director of the French Development Agency (AFD) said, and he is right, that sport can be a formidable accelerator of development and social cohesion, provided that we think about “sport and development” together. that is to say by putting sport into development, and development into sport, while working very seriously and without naivety to seek the maximum social and environmental impact.
It will take intelligence to properly articulate all this, but it is certainly not by depriving sport of this ministry which is not its own since it already shares it with “Youth” and “Civic Action”.
Par Nathan Laguerreoff.
Sportscaster
Specialist in Sports Law
President of the Haitian Center for Development sport
Cover image published by AyiboPost illustrating information according to which the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Civic Action (MJSAC) would be in the sights of the appointed Prime Minister, Garry Conille, as a ministry to be excluded from his government.
Discover this AyiboPost report on the first edition of the Kako’s Kids interschool tournament, won by the Lycée national de La Saline, an institution relocated due to insecurity in its area:
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