New development frontiers? The role of youth, sport and cultural interventions 2017-2019

Data includes anonymised transcribed formal and informal interviews. The project investigated the role of sport, cultural and education programmes in enabling sustainable development for young people in three low- and middle-income countries: Cape Verde, Nepal and Timor-Leste. Data was collected between October 2017 and April 2019, from our three research locations. Various types of organisations - NGOs, INGOs, governmental organisations, cultural organisations and private donors - contributed data. This project investigates the role of sport, cultural and educational programmes in promoting sustainable development among young people in low- and middle-income countries (LICs and MICs), specifically to tackle poverty, conflict in fragile states, environmental sustainability, and gender inequality. These programmes are usually implemented by non-governmental organizations with support from other agencies. We have little unified knowledge from across different LICs and MICs, of how these programmes are implemented, and how they are experienced and interpreted by young user groups. This project seeks to fill these knowledge gaps, and thus has three broad aims: i) to enhance knowledge of these programmes with young people in LICs; ii) to improve programme efficacy in policy and practice; iii) to work with key stakeholders, to support these interventions, to secure social change. These aims translate into four research objectives: (1) To analyse the specific role of sport, cultural and educational interventions in tackling poverty, conflict in fragile states, environmental sustainability, and gender divisions in LICs. (2) To capture the experiences and perspectives of young people on these programmes. (3) To evaluate comparatively how these programmes are developed, implemented, experienced and interpreted. (4) To identify how programmes may be changed to have stronger benefits for young people.