FIBA's Oceania regional office, the Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea (BFPNG) and FIBA's Foundation, the International Basketball Federation (IBF), have announced a partnership agreement through to 2018.

This partnership will see IBF investment support the development of healthier and more inclusive communities through sport in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Over half the population of PNG are between the ages of 0-24 years (54%) and once they hit adulthood, one in four of them are considered obese. This partnership seeks to engage the youth of PNG in regular basketball activities and educate them on the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. By reaching kids whilst they are young, BFPNG hopes to give them a new lease on lif“Papua New Guinea is a small country with huge potential,” stated IBF President Yvan Mainini.

The agreement with IBF and FIBA’s Oceania office will enable BFPNG to activate a number of programs and community engagement initiatives such as their Australian government funded Hoops for Health (H4H) program. H4H is strategically designed to contribute to non-communicable disease awareness, promoting the importance of school attendance and the value of education, and reducing anti-social behaviour and encouraging social cohesion. 

The first stage of the initiative will be for IBF and FIBA’s Oceania office to assist BFPNG to improve their governance, operational effectiveness and sustainability. IBF are proud that their support will help increase BFPNG’s capacity to plan, run and monitor participation based programs, progress participation and leadership of women in sport and improve collaboration between BFPNG and their development partners.

“Our partnership with the FIBA office in Oceania and BFPNG will not only aim at supporting this important health and community engagement program,” commented Mainini. “At the same time it will support the development of the basketball structure in the country and we look forward to this common challenge.”