Africa-Press – Angola. Sport has been an element on the agenda at the Summits of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), whose 43rd session will take place from the 7th to the 17th of this month, in Luanda.
At the conclave, during which Angola will assume the rotating presidency of the organization, it is expected that aspects of sport will be addressed with the usual relevance, at a time when the country has registered the rise in the ranking of the Games in Region 5.
In an interview Thursday in Luanda, where he addressed the evolution of this social aspect in the community, the National Director for Sports, Nicolau Daniel, said he hoped for reflections around the development policies of SADC, created in 1992.
According to the official, since the genesis, the governments have indicated the Higher Council for Sports in Africa (CSSA) as the right arm in the matter of organization, dynamization and development in the five existing regions, with Angola being a member of the countries of Region 5.
According to the interlocutor, the CSSA includes the ministers who define the structure of the sector in each country, within a strategy and a policy of evolution aimed, in the first instance, at the generalization of sport among Youth.
He underlined that such generalization is made based on certain projects defined by each Region, focusing on the institutionalization of the SADC Games, played in five Regions (from one to five).
Nicolau Daniel explained that sporting events in the various Regions are aimed at youth groups up to 18 years old, but the idea is that athletes with even younger ages, such as the Under-14s, should also participate, allowing international contact earlier. to young talent.
He referred that the Games in the Region have allowed athletes to reach high competitive levels and then selected to represent their respective countries in competitions at higher levels such as World Championships, Olympic and Paralympic Games.
He stated that, in addition to the competitions, there is a Performance Program for the Podium (PPP) which consists of awarding scholarships to outstanding athletes.
As he made known, the objective is for them to have a more specialized preparation aiming at good participation in other competitions in Africa, World Cup or Olympic and Paralympic Games, giving prestige to the respective countries and the region.
He added that the program works with the cataloging of athletes for successive monitoring within the framework, not only generalization, but above all sports development.
ANGOLA
He indicated that Angola has been working with athletes not only through the PPP project, but also with the national federations so that, through the Olympic scholarships, the best talents are selected and catalogued.
He referred that the focus for this project are individual modalities such as judo, swimming, adapted sport, athletics and gymnastics that have had a very great performance.
According to the staff of MINJUD, this way of proceeding in Angola has been shared in specific forums so that it is generalized throughout the region.
In this sense, for example, he added that MINJUD works with the federations and these with the Angolan Olympic Committee (COA), through a proposal indicating the target athletes.
According to the interviewee, what the supervising ministry does is transmit the cooperation protocols between the SADC countries to the federations, at a sports level, so that they can take advantage of the knowledge of other more evolved members, often with institutional support.
As a result, he said, it appears that in terms of athletics, swimming and gymnastics, there is, in fact, this cooperation work in the preparation of athletes with countries such as South Africa and Botswana.
In terms of other modalities in which Angola is better, such as judo, which usually wins medals with most of its members, the challenge, according to the source, is to fight to reach first place on the podium.
In the last three editions, he indicated that Angola led a large delegation in which all athletes won medals, but it is true that Paralympic sport, especially athletics, has also been preponderant in maintaining second place in the Ranking.
“In the last edition, in Malawi, all the modalities that we took won medals, even taekwondo that participated for experience”, he reiterated.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is made up of 16 member states, Angola, Botswana, Comoros, DRC, eSwatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe .
Founded in 1992, the body’s mission is to promote sustainable and equitable economic growth, socio-economic development through efficient production systems, deeper cooperation and integration, good governance, lasting peace and security.
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