A multi-stakeholder approach to sport as a tool for development in Africa: Comparing Ghana and Zambia

This chapter presents a novel comparative analysis of distinctive features of government-led policy implementation using sport as a tool for development in Ghana and Zambia. Countries from the Global South are regarded as the quintessential sites for development following the United Nations (UN) global emphasis on developmental goals since the beginning of the millennium. Governmental engagement in multi-stakeholder collaboration has been consistently advocated by the UN, and many African countries have, over time, engaged with these global agendas and made significant steps to include sport in their development policy agendas. In this study, we sought to understand Southern perspectives on the approaches and structures developed to implement these policy agendas. Focusing on the cases of Ghana and Zambia, semi-structured interviews that elicit the perspectives of key indigenous stakeholders who are involved with local policy implementation are complemented by textual analysis of country-specific policy documents. In Ghana, sport is considered a significant tool for achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and a key element for ‘sectorial issues in social development’ in the country’s 40-Year Long-Term National Development Plan (2018-2057). Similarly, sport has been used to tackle development outcomes in Zambia initially instigated by mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in both sports development and physical education programmes. Given this background, the chapter focuses on analysing and comparing networks of Ghanaian and Zambian actors within the sports policy subsystem of both countries. In doing so, the chapter offers a comparative analysis of policy implementation, distribution of resources, multi-stakeholder engagements and collaborations across the two countries.