Sport for social cohesion and development in South Africa: Stylized facts analysis

Sport is identified as one of the mechanism for binding society together and directly achieving healthiness of the society. With these factors, sport serves as a development tools to achieve Social Development Goals (SDG) in "global south" countries which South Africa is no exception. Fostering the unity of the multi-ethno-racial society of South Africa is one of the attainment of sport activities in the country. This study employed the descriptive and stylized fact analysis to investigate the deployment of sport for social cohesion in South Africa. The data for this study were primarily sourced from South Africa's Department of Sport and Recreation. The empirical findings revealed that sport and recreation participation increased since 2015 which peaked in 2017 with 47386 people participation in South Africa and thereby reducing health challenges as noted in increasing life expectancy. But funding of sport and recreation have been on decline since 2013 to 2016 but marginally improved in 2017. The sustainability of sport and recreation promotion events to bring communities together to ensure social cohesion is dependent on various factors among which are financial support and infrastructure. The results of the current study suggest that sport financing is inadequate to achieve the objective of bringing communities together.