“The key thing is not sports as a business, but sports as a catalyst,” argued Solomon Quaynor, Vice President on the African Development Bank, throughout a dialogue on how improvement establishments ought to method the financing of sports activities infrastructure.
The session, “Opportunities & Legacy of Major Sporting Events” occurred on 27 February, through the not too long ago concluded Finance in Common Summit (FICS) 2025, in Cape Town, South Africa. Moderated by Ollie Dudfield of the International Olympic Committee, the dialogue explored methods of bridging the divide between sports activities as leisure and sports activities as a driver of sustainable improvement.
Drawing from expertise in each improvement finance and funding banking, Quaynor offered a business actual property analogy: “For those of us who are financiers, think about it from a shopping mall perspective. The viability of a shopping mall is anchored around the anchor tenants. So, sports can be the anchor tenant of an arena, but there are going to be other ways in which one can monetize that asset.”
Quaynor added that multipurpose services provide numerous income streams, within the African context: “This arena could be used for some major church and religious services. It could also be used for some weddings…” Acknowledging the problem of restricted financing, he advocated for an incremental method: “We don’t necessarily finance the entire arena… but we find ways essentially to look at this as a public-private partnership that works.”
Herman Pienaar of UN Habitat contributed an city improvement perspective. “If one can promote sport, and if one can use sport as a catalyst to activate areas, then that’s a good way to lead urban development processes,” he mentioned, including, “Sport needs to become part of the everyday planning discourse within cities. It’s not something that’s added on at the end. It needs to be in the same paradigm as what they plan for schools, for open spaces, for roads, electricity.”
Major sporting occasions, Pienaar famous, create a way of urgency round infrastructure improvement, “the kind of urgency to deal with issues that you’ve known about for quite a long time but never had the focus and energy to actually deal with.”
Carey Jooste from the Development Bank of Southern Africa emphasised the position of partnerships, “Instead of reinventing the wheel, how do we do it together?” she said. “Moving forward, the sport coalition is a critical driver for partnerships and driving development impact.”
Sho Sato of the Japan Sport Council shared experiences from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic video games, highlighting city improvement, native and neighborhood improvement, and worldwide improvement cooperation as key areas wherein the legacy of the Games continues to manifest.
Quaynor additional highlighted the broader socioeconomic advantages of sports activities, past infrastructure renewal: “If sports permeates society, then the healthcare bill begins to drop over time. It’s not immediate, but it’s a long-term impact.”
The Finance in Common Summit is an annual gathering of all Public Development Banks and their companions from governments and the personal sector. The 2025 version held from 26-28 February 2025, with the theme, “Fostering Infrastructure and Finance for Just and Sustainable Growth.”
Source African Development Bank Group
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