Dare to inaugurate Sports Industry Working Group

From Chinyere Okoroafor, Abuja

The Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, in furtherance of the ministry’s quest to ensure the progress of the Nigeria Sport sector and in conjunction with the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, has concluded plans to inaugurate the Sports Industry Working Group (SIWG) and its Steering Committee in Abuja on Thursday.

In a statement signed by NESG Head, Corporate Communications, Yinka Iyinolakan, the SIWG is a platform with the mandate with the mandate to address cross cutting and cross-sectorial cooperation issues in the sports sector with a view to fast tracking the repositioning of the Nigeria sports sector as a sustainable private sector led social, economic and community development platform, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The SIWG is expected to midwife the repositioning of sports through a robust National Sports Industry Policy, Focused legislation to drive the implementation of the policy, and Targeted and constant initiatives, incentives, investments and interventions to support the implementation of a national policy to deliver on the potential and growth of sports as an economic contributor.

The main objective of SIWG is to ensure that there is a continuous dialogue between the public, private and social enterprise sectors to deliver a viable sports industry in Nigeria, especially within and between the key MDAs that impact on sports industry development which includes Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Federal Ministry of Industry Trade & Investment, Federal Ministry of Information & Culture, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Federal Ministry of Health and Central Bank of Nigeria – CBN. The SIWG aims to deliver on the goals of the Sports Reform Agenda built on the four pillars of sector specific Incentives and targeted Investment into key sports Infrastructure backed by a vibrant Policy (The 3Is and 1P).

The SIWG is an outcome of several previous engagements between the FMYSD and key stakeholder groups especially the Sports Industry Business Round Table Session at the 25th Nigerian Economic Summit in October 2019 and the Inter-Ministerial Technical Session on Sports Industry Development held in November, 2019, which featured inputs from 10 Federal Ministries and several Departments and Agencies as well as the Private and Social enterprise sectors of the economy.

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The 16 member SIWG Steering Committee which is the Apex decision making and approving authority that sets the strategic direction for the Working Group is made up of eight members from the FMYS and eight members from the private sector. The SIWG operations will be coordinated by a functional Secretariat situated in the Liaison office in the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports as directed by the Minister.

The work of the SIWG will be done through a Technical Committee and Work Groups made up of members drawn from the Public, Private and Social Enterprise Sectors of as well as Representatives from the National Council of Sports and Representatives from Nigerian Governor’s Forum.

The SIWG operations will be coordinated by a functional Secretariat situated in the Liaison office in the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports as directed by the Honourable Minister, and will deploy a Monitoring and Evaluation System to track contributions of all the Work Groups to the stated objectives of the SIWG with a view to enhancing the incentives to drive the new policy trust of the sports industry.