07 Apr 2022

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is committed to promoting sport as a tool for social and sustainable development.

France Ambassador to Botswana, Laurence Beau said it was in 2015, in a historic move for the Olympic and Paralympic Movement, that the United Nations’ report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) officially mentioned sport as an ‘important partner’ in sustainable development and since then, April 6 had been celebrated every year.

“In this context, International Day of Sport for Development and Peace is an excellent platform for advocating to the international community for increased investment in sports, she said.

That is why Paris 2024 and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs have organised a 24-hour worldwide sports relay, mobilising the world of sport through the Terre de Jeux 2024 embassies and other institutions,” she said.

“It is with great honour that I, together with the BNOC, receive you today at the French residence for the Terre de Jeux 2024 Relay around the world, one of the many events that we will organise ahead of the Olympics games that will take place in Paris in July and August 2024,” she said.

Beau said the aim of the event was to connect the Terre de Jeux 2024 embassies and institutions all over the world to involve the French and Francophiles and to gather the sports movement around sports practice.

For 24 hours, she said starting in Fidji, each embassy and other labialised institutions would organise a one-hour race, adding that once they had completed the race, each of them would pass the baton to the entities located in the next time zone, who would carry out their race for 24 hours.

“The handover is organised through social media, for example, this Embassy received the baton from the French Embassy in Bulgaria and passed it on to the French Embassies in Cameroun and Libya,” she said.

Botswana National Olympics Committee president, Botsang Tshenyego said the committee  was forging a strong relations with French, but said he was cognizant of the fact that Botswana and France MoU did not include sport and they had the opportunity to include it so that their engagement was on a firm foundation.

 He said their friendship in Olympic language preceded the Tokyo 2020 Games, adding that it was a friendship and partnership anchored on a common belief and conviction that sport was among the leading vehicles to advance nations and societies. ENDs