As the main United Nations platform on sustainable development, the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is an annual gathering of Member States designed to follow-up and review the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As in previous years, HLPF 2020 offers a platform to debate issues impacting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including successes and challenges; however, unlike former gatherings, this year has seen a largely virtual format, in response to COVID-19.
Countries around the world are grappling with a surge in radicalization and violent extremism, which disproportionally affects young people. This trend is associated in part with the political and socioeconomic disaffection of young men, and increasingly young women, who join terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant; and with the far right, neo-fascist and white separatist movements gaining traction across western societies, including Europe and North America. In looking at ways to address this, there has been growing understanding that security-based responses to violent extremism must be accompanied by a focus on more preventative efforts.
This Technical Guide provides comprehensive guidance on how sport and sport-based programmes can be used in the context of Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) to address related risk and protective factors. The event will highlight the important role that sport can play in preventing violent extremism and will serve to share experiences from states and civil society organizations on the effective integration of sport in national policy frameworks and the implementation of sport-based programmes.
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When: Thursday, 2 July 2020, 2:00 PM CET
Where: Online/Microsoft Teams (registered participants will receive a link to join the event)
One of the many limitations of the stay at home orders, which remain effective around most of the world, is its impact on physical movement in large spaces for the sake of exercise. For people accustomed to the regular practice of sports, whether in a gym, in parks or even on streets, suddenly renouncing to these activities can be difficult, sometimes causing stress which only adds to the anxiety of these new global circumstances.
Staying at home, however, does not mean one is forced to become sedentary.
In the past month, over 20,000 people in Uzbekistan have risen to the challenge of the country's Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports and UNODC to Line Up, Live Up from their homes, and to then share those special moments on social media accounts.
UNODC's Line Up, Live Up initiative, developed by the Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration, has been gaining popularity around the world with its innovative use of lessons on both the physical and intellectual levels to keep youngsters away from trouble. Last month, over 600 students in Uzbekistan completed the training in 18 different schools in Andijan, Namangan and Fergana. The students learned how to resist social pressures which could lead them to engage in delinquency; they also learned how to cope with anxiety, and how to communicate effectively with peers through a set of fun and interactive exercises.
