Conference outcomes and recommendations

Minister Taha Barwary declared his intention to take ideas and lessons from the conference and feed them into the Kurdistan Region's Sport Roadmap, the key strategic approach to what the Kurdistan Region aims to achieve through building its sporting activities and infrastructure over the coming years.

The Minister also revealed his ambition to set up a 'School of Sports' in Kurdistan, and looked forward to drawing on Welsh expertise in developing grassroots sports to help achieve this.

The conference recommended the following strategies to overcome the principal challenges facing the Kurdistan Region in the area of sports:

• To promote a stronger culture of sport in the Region;
• To encourage better collaboration between key sporting bodies;
• To improve leadership and management skills, from the regional level down to individual sports clubs;
• To create a more robust evidence-base for what sport can and is achieving in the Region;
• To do more to involve the Kurdistani diaspora in developing sports in the Region; and
• To drive forward international relationships at a regional level.

Minister Barwary invited a delegation from Wales to visit the Kurdistan Region in 2009, including Welsh Sports Minister Alun Ffred Jones, renowned Welsh athlete Colin Jackson, and senior representatives from the Sports Council Wales.

The Kurdistan Regional Government believes the conference has marked the beginning of partnerships and exchange opportunities between UK-based sporting bodies and sports organisations in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq.