Pacific Sports Partnership

In August, 2009 at the 40th Pacific Islands Forum, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd MP announced the release of an additional $15M over five years (2009-2014) to establish and support sport partnerships between Australian, Oceania regional Sports Federations and their Pacific Island counterparts.Initial partnerships will focus on cricket, football, netball, rugby league and rugby union. The Australian and Oceania Federations in these sports are working with the ASC to share resources and strategies to implement grassroots programs that have social benefits.

The aim of this program is to promote collaboration between Australian and Pacific sports organisations that result in strengthened grassroots sports activities in the Pacific communities and to improve participation pathways for players, administrators, coaches and officials.

The initial agreements between the partners (Australian Government (AusAID and ASC), Australian NSOs and Oceania Federations) are well underway, with in-country consultation and work planning to commence over the next few months.

Although it is early in the partnership process, Martin Roberts, manager of the Pacific Partnerships at the ASC says "this is an exciting initiative that will see significant delivery of sport for development programs in a range of sports throughout the Oceania region". He said, “essentially, this program is about partnering, sustainable capacity building and delivering what the partner countries want”. He said, “a key element to success for the Pacific Partnerships involves building on the successful work of the Australian Sports Outreach Program (ASOP).  ASOP is a joint sport for development program funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and delivered by the ASC in countries such as Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Kiribati, Nauru and Solomon Islands.