Dakar 2026 has not yet begun, but its impact is already being felt long before the opening ceremony. The Youth Olympic Games, which will mark a historic moment as the first Olympic sporting event to be held on African soil, are being conceived as an opportunity to build something that goes far beyond the two weeks of competition. For the President of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry, the true legacy will not lie solely in the facilities or in the images that will travel around the world, but in the people who are gaining knowledge, developing new skills and finding opportunities through sport.
This approach was one of the main messages delivered during the SportsBiz Africa Forum, held in Kigali, Rwanda, where Coventry highlighted Dakar 2026’s capacity to drive social and economic development across the continent. Preparations for the Games already involve training programmes for young professionals, educational initiatives seeking to reach hundreds of thousands of students and projects supported by the IOC that have reached millions of people across Africa. Behind each of these figures lies an idea that runs through the Olympic strategy: using sport not only as a stage for competition, but also as a tool for learning, accessing employment and strengthening communities.
Dakar 2026 and a new generation for African sport
One of the clearest examples of this vision is the Dakar 2026 Learning Academy, a programme that has enabled hundreds of young professionals from Senegal and other African countries to train in areas such as Games planning, sports operations and event management. What makes this initiative distinctive is that training is not limited to the classroom. Many of these young people are applying their knowledge directly to the organization of the Games, taking part in a process that allows them to learn while helping build one of the most important sporting events in the continent’s history.
For Coventry, this experience represents a different way of understanding the legacy of a major event. Buildings may remain after the competition, but the knowledge acquired by a generation can also travel, multiply and become new opportunities. This dimension is complemented by Olympic values-based educational programmes, which aim to reach up to 900,000 young people in 11,000 schools across Senegal. The initiative is focused on ensuring that Dakar 2026 can leave tools that accompany children and young people long after athletes have left the competition venues, creating a generation with greater experience and capacity to drive the future of African sport.
Investing in people to expand the impact of sport
The IOC President also emphasized the need to build partnerships capable of sustaining this impact. For sport to generate employment, develop skills and contribute to the growth of communities, collaboration between sports organizations, businesses, governments and communities becomes essential. From this perspective, investment is not understood solely as the construction of infrastructure or the financing of events, but as a direct investment in people who participate in and develop through sport.
The results of programmes promoted across Africa in recent years demonstrate the scale this strategy can reach. Since 2022, initiatives supported by the IOC have benefited more than 2.9 million people across the continent, including more than 640,000 young people who regularly participate in sports programmes. Nearly 4,000 professionals have received training and around 950 organizations have been supported to strengthen their work within communities. In countries such as Rwanda, projects like “1000 Hills Rugby” combine sports participation with tools for working life, teaching young people how to prepare a CV, face a job interview and operate in a professional environment. While Dakar prepares to welcome around 2,700 athletes aged up to 17 from around the world, the movement surrounding the Games is already involving thousands of people in a story that began before the first day of competition.
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