Investing in Sports and Physical Activity and promoting Arts and Culture

To address this issue, Budget 2019-2020 has earmarked a series of fundamental reforms in the sports and physical activity sector with focus on four key priority areas namely:  the creation of Active Mauritius for Sports for All; increase in the budget of the Mauritius Sports Council to Rs 40 million under the Lotto Fund to encourage the population to become active; development of Team Mauritius for our elite sports; setting up of Coaching Mauritius for the workforce development; and establishment of Sports Facilities Mauritius to optimise the use of sports infrastructure.

Furthermore, the Sports Act 2016 will be reviewed with a new Sports and Physical Activity Bill which will introduce provisions related to:

• A Code of Sports Governance;
• A Coaches Code of Ethics;
• A Safeguarding and Safe Sport Policy; and
• The Rules of the Mauritian Anti-Doping Agency.

Government aims to provide world class sports facility to one and all. In this endeavor, the Sports Complex at Côte D’Or which will be a signature venue for the upcoming ‘Jeux des Iles’ would offer world class facilities for our athletes and for promoting wider participation of the population in sports and physical activities for years to come. Côte D’Or will also become the ‘home of sports’ in Mauritius, acting as a base for our High Performance Centre to support the newly created Team Mauritius, that will also take on responsibility for developing a portfolio of Sport Academies of international standard for our youth.

Another major game changer measure in the history of Mauritian Sports is the setting up of an International Football Academy Soccer School at Côte D’Or. An agreement will be signed by the Mauritius Multi-Sports Infrastructure Ltd agreement with the Liverpool Football Club and Athletics Grounds Limited from the UK for the first international sports academy. Besides, a Sports Economic Commission will be established at the EDB to look into ways of fostering a sports cluster in our economy.

Investing in Arts and Culture to Promote Well Being

Another crucial contributor to well-being in a society is arts and culture and Government is envisaging further investment to promote its development. Measures in Budget 2019-2020 include: setting up of the Intercontinental Slavery Museum; Rs 30 million for phase 2 of the renovation of the Port Louis Theatre; decentralised service of the Conservatoire de Musique Francois Mitterrand to offer syllabus-based programmes at its branches in Grand Baie and Rodrigues; and Government will finance the fees for the practical examinations of the London College of Music and the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music for candidates at the Grade 8, pre-diploma, diploma and post-diploma levels.