ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sports Politics, Policy and Law
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1607167
This article is part of the Research TopicSports Policy and Management in the Era of Sustainable Development Goals: Challenges and OpportunitiesView all 12 articles
Physical Activity, Sports Participation, and Sustainable Development in the Ibero-American Region: A Pilot Implementation of Indicators in Chile, Costa Rica, and Ecuador
Provisionally accepted
Robert Bauer1,2*
Raúl Sánchez-García1,2Daniela Hernández2,3Domingo Faustino Hernández-Angeles2,3
Silvia Alejandra González2,4
Inés Nieto1,2
Xián Mayo1,2
Alfonso Jiménez1,2- 1King Juan Carlos University, Research Centre in Sports Science (CIDE), Fuenlabrada, Spain
- 2Ibero-American Sports Council, Madrid, Spain
- 3UNESCO, Montevideo, Uruguay
- 4District Institute of Recreation and Sports, Bogota, Colombia
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In recognition of the potential contributions of sports and physical activity to national development and responding to international calls from organizations like UNESCO and the World Health Organization, a coalition of agencies and Ibero-American sports ministers endorsed the creation of an indicator set to assess the impact of sports participation and physical activity on sustainable development. Methods: The Ibero-American Sports Council, UNESCO, and the German Agency for International Cooperation developed a set of twelve Sports and Development indicators and four key data points for the Ibero-American region. In 2024, the first national-level pilot implementation was completed in Chile, Costa Rica, and Ecuador, collecting data using specifically designed formulae. Results: Each country was able to partially provide relevant data for the defined indicators, with Chile completing eight, Costa Rica four, and Ecuador seven indicators. All countries provided data for the key data points. Conclusions: The first national pilot implementation of the proposed indicators—as part of its validation process—highlights the need for improved quality and accessibility of reliable data across the Ibero-American region. These indicators have the potential to assess, track, and compare policies related to physical activity and sports, and to identify challenges and opportunities for improvement.
Keywords: Evaluation, framework, Health, policy coordination, Monitoring, United Nations 2030 Agenda, Ibero-American indicators model
Received: 07 Apr 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bauer, Sánchez-García, Hernández, Hernández-Angeles, González, Nieto, Mayo and Jiménez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Robert Bauer, King Juan Carlos University, Research Centre in Sports Science (CIDE), Fuenlabrada, Spain
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