Towards the end of the twentieth century, various international organisations in consonance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognised the potential of sports as a conduit for achieving social-economic developmental goals, particularly in areas where conventional development methods proved to be inadequate. This led to the emergence of a global phenomenon called ‘Sports for Development and Peace’ (SDP), referring to the intentional use of physical activity and play to promote gender equality, health awareness and bring about universalisation of primary education amongst children and youth. Organisations working under the ambit of SDP are focussed on such children and adolescents who are marginalised due to poverty and conflict, deprived of basic education and vulnerable to diseases. In this context, the present paper has captured the relationship between various development objectives and sports and how one can facilitate access to the other, through the lens of the Sports for Development movement. The popularity of the various Sports for Development initiatives hints at a possibility that in a world of rapid changes, instability and tension, international sport can function as a stabilizing factor. Today, sport does not have to compete with other development priorities but can actually become a means of addressing them. In this light, this research paper has been written to understand better the concept, theory and practice of Sports for Development and examine it as a vehicle of facilitating social change and mobility.
