An evaluation of the evolution and development of olympic solidarity 1980-2012

According to the Olympic Charter, “the aim of Olympic Solidarity is to organise assistance to National Olympic Committees, in particular those which have the greatest need”. For the last five decades funding from the sale of Broadcasting Rights for the Olympic Games, allocated to the National Olympic Committees, has been channelled through Olympic Solidarity as a means of promoting development. The aim of this research was therefore to evaluate the extent to which this redistributive claim is evidenced through an analysis of the distribution of the Olympic Solidarity funding, and an insight into the life histories of people involved in the process of allocating grant aid for Olympic Solidarity’s World Programme funding. [Continues.

Olympic engagement and the use of Olympic Solidarity programmes by Gulf Cooperation Council states

This paper seeks to address the extent to which Olympic Solidarity (OS) funding patterns are consistent with the organisation's explicit mission, namely to serve the interests of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and in particular those in greatest need. In addition, the paper reviews the extent to which Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have been able to avail themselves of such resources. While OS funding has tended at the level of the World Programme, to reflect a tendency to favour NOCs from less affluent economies, this tendency towards progressive funding has been weakening and to some extent reversed, since the mid-2000s. Funding of GCC states has tended to be well below that of other NOCs of comparable dimensions, reflecting the fact that Gulf States have not followed a ‘linear’ path to ‘modernity’ in sport. Such a linear path might be characterised as in an initial concern with growing participation, improving governance (through issues such as women's role in sport) and enhancing performance, but GCC states have instead focused on elements of a what might be characterised as a post-modern approach in the form of hosting of major events and the celebration of spectacle, and thus drawing relatively modestly on OS resources