Sport policy: policies and developmentFudiskenttä. KUVA: Rodeo

Sport policy is designed to promote sport and physical activity and, through them, the wellbeing of the population, as well as competitive and performance sports and related civic activity.

The Ministry of Education and Culture is responsible for creating favourable conditions for sports and physical activity as well as for coordinating and developing sport policy. Governance in this sector is based on the principle of knowledge-based management and impact assessment.

The Ministry of Education and Culture emphases the importance of sport and physical activity for people’s health and wellbeing as well as the role that sport and physical activity play in strengthening civil society and inclusion. The Ministry supports ethically sustainable elite sports that aims to achieve international success.

The sport policy objectives are specified in the Act on the Promotion of Sports and Physical Activity and key policies for development are adopted in the Government Programme and in various programmes.

The report on sport policy outlines sport policy in Finland for the 2020s. The report covers policies on ways to increase physical activity at different stages of life, the construction of sports facilities, civic activity in physical activity and elite sports. The aim is to enhance people's physical activity significantly.

The issue of people’s low physical activity is identified government-widely, and all administrative branches are needed to resolve it.

The Coordination body for sport policy (LIPOKO) of the Government and organisations promoting physical activity aims to find solutions to reduce sedentary lifestyles. Previous work by the broad horizontal steering group for health-enhancing physical activity as well as the ministries' scorecards on physical activity and mobility prepared by the National Sports Council are key guiding principles for the work.