Cohesive sports policy crucial

Greetings to all our rugby league family and welcome to our 21st edition of Fulltime Reserve, a weekly column to discuss all matters rugby league in our favourite newspaper The National.
The Papua New Guinea Rugby Football’s (PNGRFL) visits to our provinces and districts continues to shed light on the need for a cohesive national sports policy and leadership that can align all national federations and stakeholders to work collectively towards strategically growing the sporting industry in PNG.
We recently highlighted the power of sports as a nation-building tool but the industry can’t effectively deliver on this potential unless all sports programmes are underpinned by a coherent and cohesive national policy that promotes sports as a strategic development industry.
The Government has articulated the country’s development charter through national planning documents such as the Vision 2050, the national medium-term development strategy and other national planning documents.
The strategy, under key result area three (sustainable social development), clause 3.4, states that “sports is a catalyst for social capital and national-building states. Sport is vital to physical and emotional health wellbeing. Boosting participation in sport generates a variety of socio-economic benefits. It provides opportunities for personal development, self-expression and healthy living. Sports cut across barriers that divide societies, making it a powerful tool to support conflict prevention and peace-building in communities. Sports provide opportunities for men and women to excel. Sporting activities create economic and employment opportunities for our people”.
The PNG Vision 2050, under clause 19.18 (key milestones for sports), further states that
“by 2020, PNG’s sporting and recreation infrastructure and management, are to be improved to world-class standards”.
The question is who is responsible for taking ownership of these national visions for sports and providing the strategic leadership for the growth and development of the sporting industry?
At present all federations, including PNGRFL, are doing their own things to develop their sports programmes with very little collaboration and collective purpose and direction across the industry.
This predicament continues to foster an unhealthy environment of rivalry and competition between federations instead of promoting collaboration and partnerships that can achieve our collective national sporting visions.
The lack of a coherent national sporting policy and leadership direction for federations remains one of the key reasons why the growth of the industry continues to struggle. Join us on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to follow this and more rugby league stories.
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Until next week, may the grace, love and care of our Good Lord be with you.

Cheers,
Sandis