Kingston, 26 September 2019 – The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, has said that “A Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism which is being designed in Jamaica to measure the contribution of Sport to the national economy represents ground-breaking progress”.

Minister Grange made the statement at a workshop yesterday during which participants work on the design of a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for use by stakeholders in Sport. The workshop was led by Andy Preece, consultant from the Commonwealth Secretariat in the United Kingdom.

The Sport Minister told representatives attending from 32 organisations concerned with Sport that “I want to thank you for your involvement from the beginning of this process. It began here in Jamaica with the first National Stakeholder Forum in October 2018, where we introduced the concept of being able to measure the contribution of sport to national development and to the economy.

She said the intention was to develop sport specific indicators that would assist in measuring the impact that the sector has on Jamaica’s development as a country.

“We have to take deliberate actions to position sport, physical activity and physical education as major contributors to our respective national development agendas and ultimately to achieve the international development goals. In almost every sector, sport is used for non-sport outcomes. We use it to keep fit, to mobilize communities for action, as a peace-building tool, for fun, as entertainment, for upward mobility, to earn - but we seldom stop to take stock of how that affects us."

The Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism will also help to identify some of the gaps in sport development.

“We are working with stakeholders such as yourselves, for example, to explore regulatory mechanism for safeguarding sport from corruption, which is a worldwide epidemic. We are working with entities such as the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission and the CTOC to ensure that our athletes are protected from illegal trafficking in persons and matters relating to match fixing.

“This framework therefore is a game changer! While it is being championed by my Ministry its success depends on your inputs and commitment.”

“But, ladies and gentlemen, as our key stakeholders and partners in national development through sport, the work doesn’t stop here. We expect that having benefitted from your feedback, we will rationalize and finalise the framework which will then be accompanied by an implementation plan which we will need your help to implement."

Minister Grange thanked the Commonwealth Secretariat for working alongside Jamaica, noting that it was an exchange because “the Secretariat was learning from us as much as we are learning from them.
“The partnership is mutually beneficial as Jamaica sits on the Commonwealth Advisory Body on Sport and in a few days will be sharing our experience with the development of a monitoring and evaluation framework for sport. Not only that, but Jamaica’s role as a pilot country in the development and use of the broader Commonwealth sport indicators well noted and applauded,” the Sport Minister concluded.

END