The International Olympic Committee agreed yesterday to increase Olympic Solidarity funding 20 2024 by 16 per cent. The fund will now extend to US$ 590 million in total and will be distributed across National Olympic Organisations including the Olympic Federation of Ireland.
It also agreed to increase the funding of direct athlete support programmes by 25 per cent.
“One important lesson that I hope we have all learnt from the current Corona crisis is that we need more solidarity,” said IOC President Thomas Bach announcing the increase in funding.
“We need more solidarity within societies, but also among societies. Solidarity is one of the key Olympic values which the Olympic community is actively promoting.”
“Today’s decision to increase the budget of our Olympic Solidarity programme for the next four-year cycle by 16 per cent to USD 590 million is a very strong demonstration in times of a worldwide crisis,” IOC President Thomas Bach said.
“At 25 per cent, the increase in the funding of direct athlete support programmes is even higher than the overall increase.
The budget allocated to each NOC for its national activities has been increased to the equivalent of USD 500,000 per NOC per Olympiad, and continent-specific programme budgets have been increased by 24 per cent.
In the current Summer Olympic cycle twelve Irish athletes obtained Solidarity Scholarships which have been worth around €550 per month. Additional scholarships on the Winter Games cycle were also made available to seven athletes.
The Olympic Federation of Ireland did not submit for funding under the Government’s Sport Resilience Fund, largely due to the assistance at the international level of the IOC.
The key priorities of Olympic Solidarity for 2021-2024 were published as follows:
– Empower NOCs to keep athletes at the heart of the Olympic Movement through increased support to athletes for development at all levels, facilitating engagement through forums and exchanges, strengthening opportunities for the athletes’ entourage to play effective support roles, and ensuring that the provisions of the Athletes’ Rights and Responsibilities Declaration can be implemented by the NOCs.
– Ensure good governance, financial control and compliance by strengthening capacity-building programmes for NOCs.
– Strengthen the Olympic Movement’s solidarity funding model by prioritising the principal Olympic Solidarity mission of focusing on NOCs with the greatest needs and ensuring effective communication of all streams of Olympic Solidarity funding by the NOCs.
– Align with the IOC’s strategy for the post-coronavirus world with the enhancement of dedicated Olympic Solidarity programmes to facilitate the NOCs’ participation in future Olympic and Youth Olympic Games, and by providing online education, advocacy and training opportunities for NOCs.
– Enable NOCs to contribute to the promotion of the Olympic values by aligning Olympic Solidarity programmes with the IOC’s strategy, lending support to refugee athletes and facilitating the participation of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
– Provide individualised services to NOCs by means of targeted and direct support to 206 unique organisations through guaranteeing the minimum funding available for each NOC and reinforcing decentralised Continental Programmes responding to continental specificities.
– And finally, to introduce a robust monitoring, evaluation and learning framework for all Olympic Solidarity programmes.
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