Lebanon (Enmaeya News) – November 18, 2025
Closing of the National Conference “Towards a National Sports Strategy in Lebanon” with a Tour of the Sursock Museum Supervised by Minister Bayraqadarian.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports concluded the national conference titled “Towards a National Sports Strategy in Lebanon”, held at the Venice Hotel – InterContinental, in collaboration with the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS).
The President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, attended the opening ceremony of the conference.
Following the opening, the first session, titled “Developing a National Sports Strategy for Social and Economic Development”, was chaired by Mr. Massimiliano Montanari, Executive Director of ICSS.
Speakers in the first session included Dr. Noura Bayraqadarian, Lebanon’s Minister of Youth and Sports; Mr. Richard Caborn, former UK Minister of Sport; Ms. Snezana Samardzic-Markovic, former Minister of Youth and Sports of Serbia and former Director General of Democracy at the Council of Europe; and Marion Keim from the UNESCO Chair in Sport Development, Peace, and Olympic Education.
The second session, also chaired by Montanari, was titled “Safe Sport and Good Governance as Part of National Sports Strategies”.
Speakers included Professor Laurent Vidal, Director of Sports Ethics at Sorbonne University; Dr. Christos Anagnostopoulos, Associate Professor at the UNESCO Chair on Governance and Social Responsibility in Sport – Hamad Bin Khalifa University; Mr. Bojan Mijatovic from the European Multisport Clubs Association; and Mr. Emmanuel Medeiros, Director General of the Sports Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA).
The conference concluded with a roundtable discussion titled “Civil Society: Expressing Their Aspirations for Lebanon’s National Sports Strategy”, chaired by Hassan Sharara, Acting Head of the Youth Department at the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Participants included Professor Matt Andrews from Harvard Kennedy School, representatives of Lebanese sports federations, sponsors, and organizations.
In the evening, a special tour was organized for the conference guests at the Sursock Museum, outside regular visiting hours, in the presence of Minister Bayraqadarian, who delivered a speech thanking the attendees and presented them with miniature Lebanese cedars.
Earlier in the day, the guests met with students from the American University of Beirut at the university’s Ras Beirut campus.
