Understanding the evidence for child-focused sport for development

In 2006, Barcelona Football Club (FC Barcelona) and the Barça Foundation signed a pioneering partnership with UNICEF. Since then, over two million children in seven countries have been reached through UNICEF programme support amounting to B19 million. The partners’ focus is to improve children’s lives through sport, play and protection. While delivering projects, the partners have identified a critical gap in the availability of robust evidence to underpin sport for development (S4D) practice. Therefore, in 2017, they expanded their strategic direction to include initiatives designed to build the body of global knowledge on S4D and demonstrate the need for greater understanding of evidence on child-focused S4D.