Building a case for incorporating sport as an indicator in human development index

PURPOSE: United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution 73/24 on 3rd December 2018, to recognize sport as an enabler of sustainable development. To examine whether sport really plays an enabling role, the medals ranking of countries on the basis of medals obtained (per million population) in Summer Olympics during the five Olympics games over the first two decades of 21st century has been chosen as an indicator of sports achievement of a country and has been compared with their Human Development Index (HDI) ranking during that particular year of Olympics. The aim of this research was to examine the correlation between sports achievement and HDI. METHODS: This research uses the Summer Olympic Rank as per medals obtained per million population (for the years 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016) of various countries as the Indicator of their sports achievement and compares them with their HDI Rank during these specific years. RESULTS: The researchers tested the hypothesis that the higher the sports achievement, the higher the HDI of a country and vice-versa. The analysis shows a very high positive correlation between the Olympic medal ranking and the HDI ranking, revealing that the countries with higher sports achievement have higher HDI. CONCLUSIONS: Hence, the conclusion is, if a sport is include in HDI as an indicator of the Human Development Index, sport could become an important vehicle for the improvement of HDI, especially in low and middle-income countries where the sports achievement is low and the HDI is also low.