Ogi gives Liberia a sporting chance

Keystone

Former Swiss cabinet minister Adolf Ogi has touted a five-week "Sports for Peace" programme underway in Liberia as a model for other former conflict countries.

In an interview with swissinfo, the United Nations special adviser on sport for development and peace also discusses his future, and Swiss preparations for the Euro 2008 football championships.

Ogi was in Liberia earlier this month to launch the nation’s “Sports for Peace” programme aimed at promoting reconciliation and development.

Football, kickball and volleyball tournaments are being held across a country that suffered 14 years of bloody civil war from 1989 to 2003.

Ogi says that if the project – organised jointly by the UN Mission in Liberia, the Lausanne-based International Olympic Committee and the Liberian authorities – proves a success, it could be repeated elsewhere.

swissinfo: Why Liberia?

Adolf Ogi: I think it is important to underline that the civil war in Liberia cost some 200,000 lives and made approximately one million people refugees. The national infrastructure and the economy were totally destroyed.

It is important that, together with all the efforts on the political side, we try to support Liberia in its attempts to get back to normal and ensure a better future.

swissinfo: But can five weeks of football and volleyball really make a difference to a population scarred by 14 years of civil war?

A.O.: It is easy to say that sport is not important, that it cannot help people overcome difficulties, but sport is the best school of life and we have to focus on the younger generation who will be tomorrow’s leaders. When I saw these kids in [the capital] Monrovia’s West Point where 70,000 people live in a slum, the only thing to take them out of this traumatic situation is to give them a ball and let them play. There is no other instrument that can have the same effect and [produce a] result in such a short time.

You mustn’t forget that in Liberia they had child soldiers who were killing people and now it is important to try and integrate them again into society.

swissinfo: Moving closer to home, Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who is Swiss, recently scolded his countrymen for their lack of enthusiasm for the Euro 2008 football championships, to be held jointly by Switzerland and Austria.

A.O.: There are two sides to this. On the one hand, there is not much enthusiasm at the moment because the national football team is not doing very well at all. They have lost their last three games and a great deal depends on the team’s results.

On the other hand, it is also too soon. If enthusiasm is still missing in March next year – two months before the tournament starts – then it will be a problem.

swissinfo: Will you be looking to use Euro 2008 as a platform for your UN work?

A.O.: You will probably be surprised to hear that it is more difficult spreading my message in Europe than in Africa, Asia or South America. We are trying to organise projects for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 but nobody [from Euro 2008] has got in touch with us.

If we were contacted by the organising committee, we would of course help them to do something with the support of the United Nations. We are ready but I think the initiative must come from them.

swissinfo: In November last year you said you were unsure how long you would stay in your job. Have you come to a decision yet?

A.O.: I wanted to resign with [former UN secretary-general] Kofi Annan but the new administration asked me to stay on. It is in the interests of the United Nations that these activities go on inside the organisation. But how long I will be in the job, I will discuss with the secretary-general when I meet him in April.

swissinfo-interview: Adam Beaumont

In brief

Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Ogi, a former Swiss cabinet minister, special adviser on sport for development and peace in 2001.

In November 2004 Ogi launched the UN Year of Sport in New York together with Annan and Swiss tennis star Roger Federer.

On Friday the Swiss government said it would pay SFr410,000 ($340,000) towards covering the cost of Ogi’s mandate, which runs until the end of the year.