The United Nations secretary-general's Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, Wilfried Lemke, said Friday in Luanda that in Africa sport is a powerful instrument that must be used a guarantor of peace.
Wilfried Lemke said sport has a great power to modify people's minds, thanks to its unifying role, its principles of respect for the opponent and fair-play.
The UN official was speaking at a press conference at the end of a field visit he paid to the Catholic Church-run Dom Bosco shelter centre and to the new Luanda city of Kilamba.
An example of the unifying role of sport was the organisation of the World Cup of 2010 in South Africa, said the UN official who came to Angola at the invitation of the African Paralympic Committee (APC).
He mentioned that before the World Cup was held in the African continent, the world was sceptic about the success of the event, as it is a multicultural nation then faced with internal problems. But the South Africans ended up giving an example of unity, he stressed.
Wilfried Lemke who was addressing the African Development Conference sponsored by the APC, spoke of the need for states to join the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and expressed his satisfaction with Angola being so close to it.
More than a hundred delegates from 43 countries attended the APC General Assembly and its Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday in Luanda.
The event led to the election of Angolan Leonel Pinto for a new four-year term as chairman of the African Paralympic Committee.
AngolaPress
