London, Auckland and Singapore have today been announced as Founding Cities in a ground-breaking new global initiative designed to get millions of people active in cities around the world.
Developed to provide policymakers and strategic agencies with evidence-based guidance for development of physical activity and sport interventions, the Active Citizens Worldwide initiative will provide a unique opportunity to establish global benchmarks and shared expertise around physical activity behaviours in cities across the globe.
Commenting on the launch of Active Citizens Worldwide, Tove Okunniwa, Chief Executive, London Sport, said:
Active Citizens Worldwide offers an exciting opportunity to broaden our understanding of what drives participation in cities across the globe. Strong insight and data are vital to effective decision-making for physical activity and sport, and the Active Citizens Worldwide initiative will afford tremendous opportunities to learn from and share global best-practice.
We are delighted to make London a part of this international community and look forward to working with Auckland and other counterparts in future cities as Active Citizens Worldwide grows throughout 2018.
Through Active Citizens Worldwide, London Sport will work in close collaboration with Aktive, the Auckland-based body focused on getting more people recreating and playing sport in New Zealand’s largest city and with Sport Singapore (SportSG), the national sports agency for Singapore which aims to inspire the Singapore spirit and transform Singapore through sport.
Dr Sarah Sandley, Chief Executive of Aktive, said:
Aktive is committed to helping people and communities across Auckland to achieve sport and recreation habits for life. Auckland’s role as a Founding City in Active Citizens Worldwide will assist with actionable insights and monitoring that will further support Aktive and its partners with practical initiatives to deliver growth in physical activity. Our involvement will provide another valuable tool that will assist us here on the ground in Auckland.
Dr Chiang Hock Woon, Deputy Chief Executive, Sport Singapore said:
Sport Singapore is privileged to be one of three founding cities of the Active Citizens Worldwide project. As part of our Vision 2030 sports master plan, we are committed to adopt sport as a strategy to encourage our people to lead healthier, better and fulfilling lives. We look forward to a successful collaboration through sharing insights and best practices. We hope that this movement will encourage like-minded cities to also be a part of this future.
The Active Citizens Worldwide initiative will deliver initial benchmarking data in Q2 2018 with global congress and publicly-available data analysis tools scheduled to be made available in late-2018. New cities will join the Active Citizens Worldwide community throughout 2018, with interested cities encouraged to contact either London Sport, Aktive or SportSG representatives for further information.
