Sports policy in Kenya: deconstruction of colonial and post-colonial conditions

Abstract

Sport policy is a primary organ that nations utilise in their attempt to meet national development goals; it provides guidelines and operational principles that governments and sport organisations can use in sports governance. The purpose of this paper was to examine the extent to which the general and political trends were reflected in sports policy in Kenya, with specific focus on (1) sport and public policy; (2) sport professionalisation; and (3) the quest for new sport policy. The sport and public policy section focuses on the evolution of sports from pre-colonial period to early 1990s, while sport professionalisation discusses the emergence of commercialisation of athletics. The internalisation of sports evokes a new paradigm in sports governance that required Kenya government to formulate new sport policy, which culminated in the enactment of the Sport Act of 2013. Implications for this study rest on the articulation of colonial and post-colonial conditions, which have informed contemporary sport landscape, the development of sport policy that govern sports federations from local to national levels, and on the systematic ways sport entities will function in Kenya.