Sports, Youth and National Services Minister, Agnes Tjongarero, has called on the sports industry to employ ingenuity and creativity in diversifying revenue sources in order to meet government halfway.
This should be done taking into consideration the estimated 1.4 per cent Gross Domestic Product fall of African economies, which means governments will be preoccupied with the production of basic immediate necessities to improve and sustain people’s livelihoods.
Tjongarero made these remarks at the official opening of the three-day African Union Sport Council (AUSC) Executive Committee meeting taking place at Swakopmund, saying the region needs, therefore, to push beyond its comfort zones.
“We need to ensure that our orderliness and administrative excellence translate into medals and sustainable development through the attainment of set social outcomes targets.
Our focus must not be limited to what happens on the field of play, but on matters that transform lives and livelihoods, communities and nations through sport before and after the competitive years of our athletes,” she stated.
The meeting is being attended by representatives of Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Also speaking at the meeting was AUSC Region 5 Executive Committee Chairperson Imon Moreetsi Bogosi, who said the meeting is aimed at serving as a convergence point used to assess the extent to which the strategy of the region as approved by the council of ministers, is being implemented in all member countries.
“Instead of focusing on trivialities, during this meeting, we are expected to be addressing parliamentary issues that drive the entire region as a body, politics towards the attainment of collective aspirations and set targets,” Bogosi noted.
The executive committee, he went on to say, will no longer exist after the meeting as new organs have been put in place to harness the region through impartial commissions made out of experts.
“Although this will be the last time we will be gathering on this format, I am delighted that smaller groupings will allow intense training and designing of strategies and policies that will be driven by member countries to ensure better ownership than in the past,” the chairperson said.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
