As part of its efforts to support the implementation of the Doha Declaration, UNODC launched a global youth crime prevention initiative to harness the power of sport as a tool for peace . The initiative aims to promote sports and related activities to prevent crime and effectively build the resilience of at-risk youth. Strengthening the life skills of young people is a key objective in order to minimize risk factors and maximize protective factors related to crime, violence and drug use. By improving knowledge about the consequences of crime and substance abuse and developing life skills, the initiative seeks to positively influence the behavior and attitudes of young people at risk and prevent antisocial and risky behavior.
While concluding as part of the Doha Declaration Global Agenda at the end of September 2021, the UNODC global initiative on youth crime prevention through sport continues its activities as part of broader activities of the organization in matters of crime prevention and criminal justice, including in the context of a joint project. with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to “Build youth resilience through sport: using sport to promote positive youth development and social change to prevent crime, violence and drug use (2022-2025) )”.
More information about this is available here.
Sport for development and crime prevention
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights the growing contribution of sport as a tool for peace in promoting tolerance and respect. It also highlights the contributions that sport can make to the empowerment of communities at large, individuals (particularly women and youth), as well as health, education and inclusion social.
More specifically, sport provides at-risk youth with an important opportunity to develop life skills that enable them to better cope with the challenges of daily life and move away from violence, crime or drug use. .
Young people, agents of change
Through partnerships with governments, sports organizations and civil society, UNODC has led a series of youth sports outreach initiatives at national and regional levels, which have further promoted civic values and raised awareness the benefits of sport in preventing young people from becoming involved in crime and violence.
Young people were placed at the center of awareness-raising activities as agents of change. By sharing their experiences of how sport and life skills training helped them stay away from crime, young people got involved and reached out to other at-risk young people.
Line up live
Line Up Live Up – UNODC’s evidence-based, sport-based life skills training program – was designed as a unique tool that transfers the accumulated expertise of the United Nations and other partners in the implementation of life skills training for the prevention of crime and drug use in sports settings. .
Through the Line Up Live Up program, sports coaches, teachers and others working with youth in sports settings allow us to target valuable life skills, such as resisting social pressures to engage in delinquency , cope with anxiety and communicate effectively with our peers, through a set of tools. interactive and fun exercises.
The training program has been implemented in twelve countries around the world, ranging from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East to Latin America and the Caribbean.
The training program was implemented under the Doha Declaration global program until September 2021 in fourteen countries around the world, ranging from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East to Latin America and the Caribbean.
The 2020 UNODC reportPreventing youth crime through sport: lessons from the UNODC Line Up Live Up pilot program‘ analyzes quantitative and qualitative data collected from routine monitoring and evaluation tools, including youth and trainer surveys, in 11 countries and selected process and impact evaluation studies conducted by UNODC. The report places key findings and lessons learned in the context of relevant research on the use of sport for the prevention of youth violence and crime and provides recommendations on implementing programming and integrating sport in crime prevention and criminal justice settings.
