The 2011 Next Step Conference shall come to a closure today in style as the deliberations, discussions and presentations throughout the last two days were all geared towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal number 8 under the banner “Global Partnerships for Development”.

The Conference that began on Wednesday 9th November, 2011 at Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre St. Anns Port of Spain, Trinidad brought together participants from 27 countries across the globe with Kicking AIDS Out! Network being represented by South East District Youth Empowerment Association Botswana, Physically Active Youth Namibia, Coaching for Hope South Africa, National Organisation of Women in Sport Zambia, Sports in Action Zambia, CHRISC Rwanda, SCORE South Africa and SCORE Zambia, EduSport Foundation Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago Alliance for Sport and Physical Education (who are the main host of the conference) Caribbean, Oceania National Olympic Committee Fiji, Commonwealth Games Canada, UK Sport London, Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sport(NIF)Norway and the Kicking AIDS out!Network Secretariat. What was unique about the membership participation in the Conference is that, they were not passive participants, but presented under different themes and in different forums which included plenary and breakout sessions and poster presentations.

It is expected today that the outcomes from the last two days will be put into actions points and shall inform the NEXT STEPS. This will be categorised under the three themes that were discussed throughout the conference that being; Partnership and policy, resource mobilization and monitoring and evaluation.

A successful pre-conference workshop for the Kicking AIDS Out! Caribbean and Oceania Leader Level 1s and 2s preceded the conference and were facilitated by the Kicking AIDS Out! Secretariat and three Leader Level 2s from Caribbean: Ato, Tricia and Claudia. More than fifteen participants from the islands of Caribbean and Oceania attended this workshop as well as other leaders from African countries.

You can follow the proceedings on:sportanddev.org