Hosting Summer Olympics 2032: Evaluating Kenya's Bidding Proposal

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Kenya is known to be the powerhouse of athletes all over the world namely David Rudisha, Pamela Jelimo, Kipchoge Keino, Ezekeil Kemboi, Julius Yego, Vivian Cheruiyot among many others. The sprinters from this nation had been successful enough since time immemorial in bringing home several medals and making the nation as well as the continent proud. Nairobi. In addition, had hosted the recent IAAF World U18 Championships Nairobi 2017 was a huge success. Talks had been going on in hosting the 2023 IAAF Worlds in Nairobi again and the country has entered the bidding to host 2032 Summer Olympics as well (Chan, 2018). Till date, no African nation has yet hosted the Summer Olympics and out of all, Kenya wants to be the first. The current Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga had stated to the national news forum that the country is going to enter the bidding to host the Summer Olympics 2024 but sports writer Chris Tsuma stated that this bidding is going to be face dire consequences. In the year 2004, the Kenyan Sports Minister Ochilo Ayacki had made a bold statement that in near future the nation would host the Olympic Games. The official opening of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) headquartered in Nairobi saw Mr. Ayocki as the chief guest and out of everyone’s amazement; he made the aforementioned bold statement and also said that the country is going to enter the bid for the summer games to be held on 2032. It had been understated by officials that the IOC Congress Kenya’s bidding is not going to receive any considerable voting as because the country is not thought to be suitable enough to host the games (Langeslag, 2016). The voting day was being destined to see Kenya’s bidding to go down by considerable extent as no officials were there to listen to Mr. Ayocki’s statements and hence, the official business came to an end with no positive response towards Kenya’s success proposal for hosting 2032 Olympics. The Congress report needs to provide detailed reasoning regarding the negligence of any specific country’s bidding towards hosting the summer games. As far as Nairobi’s bidding proposal is concerned, the congress persons reasoned that the construction mechanism were not falling under the state-of-the art facility and the infrastructure was not suitable enough to hoist the biggest athletic game of the globe. Although the Nairobi officials had responded to the bidding negligence from the congress spokesperson that the country will be ready from every aspects within the next 5 years for the next bidding for Summer Olympics 2032.

Environmental Impacts

Whenever an Olympic is to be hosted a large amount of money is invested in preparing the environment of the Olympic host city like construction or renovation of the guest hotels, athlete accommodations and the big stadiums. The International Olympic Committee has decided to focus on making the undertaking of these projects quite sustainable (The Conversation, 2018). But in the recent decades the reduction of carbon emission has become the greatest concern. The arranging of the Olympics is accompanied with huge environmental footprint. From the analysis of the 2016 Brazil Olympics it has been seen that the flying arrangements made for taking 28,500 staffs and athletes to the host city resulted in the generation of 2,000 kilotonnes of greenhouse emission and 2,500 kilotonnes of greenhouse gases for taking half a million spectators to the city. Thus it can be evaluated that sustainability has to be the priority if the environmental footprint of the Olympics has to be reduced. The IOC has emphasized on undertaking sustainable strategies. The strategies are based on five aspects climate, mobility, workforce, material resourcing and infrastructure. The projects associated with the Olympics have to be innovative and the hosting country has to be able to support the innovations. With reference to the fact that whether Kenya will be a preferable option in being the hosting city of the Olympics 2032 the various environmental concerns over there need to be focused on. Presently lots of environment related issues have emerged in Kenya. The environmental impacts in Kenya are summarized as -  great impacts of global warming and climatic changes, poor governance, deterioration of the water resources, environmental degradation, improper clarity in delineation of certain roles in case of the leading agencies associated with environmental matters, inappropriate undertaking of the strategies related with biotechnology, lack in conducting an environmental integrated planning for ensuring sustainable development, conflicts regarding the intellectual use of the natural resources, poverty leading to desperation and destruction of the environment, corruption, no relevant national accounting in the context of the natural resources and unfriendly cultural practices towards the environment (Softkenya.com, 2018). Therefore the five aspects on which the sustainability strategy of IOC will depend is not getting fulfilled if the present scenario of Kenya is taken into consideration. Moreover the malpractices associated with constructional activities, displacements, insufficient information, environmental degradations and the land grabs are proving to be potential obstructions in the continuation of the development of the infrastructure of the country. The Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) which are meant to prevent such corruptive activities and malpractices have been rendered inactive by certain factors. The factors are corruption, subjectivity, lack in having the required political will, lack in public participation, quality of the environmental assessments and the lack in capability. The environmental impacts associated with the arranging of the Olympics reflect about creating awareness regarding sustainability and the adoption of better environment related practices (ARK Africa, 2018). The environmental innovations require better building standards, implementation of best sustainable strategies and effective regulation. All of these requirements are not present there in Kenya. A great amount of makeover is needed in the areas of governance, legislation, public participation and taking up of environment friendly strategies.

Social Impact

The arranging of the Olympic Games reflects upon aspects like pride, peace, unity and elite athleticism (Aperian Global, 2018). The aim of such arrangement is to bring different athlete present around the world to participate in the games. The coming together of the different countries will take the interactions to such levels that are quite beneficial for maintaining peace and unity in the present world. The social and cultural impacts of hosting Olympics are controlled by several other factors like society participation, infrastructure, economic status, environmental aspects and many more. The most important aspect that will judge the social impact of arranging Olympic Games is the presence of suitable infrastructure. Observations and analysis have shown that Kenya comes under the category of developing countries and is reflecting the most pathetic development in the area of infrastructure. A great development is required in the area of transportation. Without proper transportation it will not be possible to unify the athletes and spectators all around the world (Dickens, 2018). Next is the aspect of sport infrastructure. In Kenya every piece of land has been designated for certain constructional projects that are facing conflicts regarding poor governance and corruption. So land is not available for the development and construction of new facilities that will be required for the hosting of such a global sports event. Lack in governance, lack in legislation, lack in innovation, etc all of these are greatly associated with the social impacts. Coming to the natives of Kenya it has been studied that the economic status is not that great. The country suffers from utter poverty and corruption. The people residing in the country are hardly able to make their ends meet so it cannot be expected from them to show any interest in the Olympic Games. Huge amount of investment is needed for making Kenya suitable for arranging the Olympics. And the country’s infrastructure and economic structure are not able to support that kind of investment. There is lack of awareness and encouragement among the natives of Kenya. This inadequateness is keeping them aloof from the social benefits of hosting Olympic Games. The hosting of the Olympics will definitely be accompanied by media coverage. Such an exposure will help the country to gain the attentions of several potential organizations who will aid it in up-lifting its developing status to developed status. Also the exposure will be able to open up opportunities of income for the natives so that they can be able to improve their existing economic condition (Muhoho-Minni and Lubbe., 2017). The exposure from the hosting of the 2032 Olympics will indeed prove beneficial in the context of social impact for a developing country like Kenya. But the concern is related with the lack in social awareness, social participation and poor representation which do not prefer Kenya’s participation in 2032 Olympics’ bid proposal.

The existing facilities, as reported by national and international reports for the portraying of relevant information towards the infrastructural efficacy of Kenya as a whole show that sustainable conditions are far from existent and dilapidating condition of the sports complex and other backward instances of the city Nairobi has portryaed several shortcomings. Prime Minister Mr. Raila Odinga although tries to keep these shortcomings under veil and states that if Nairobi receives the voting for the hosting of 2032 Summer Olympics, then it will be a boosting scenario for the city and the country as a whole along with beneficiaries towards the citizens. The Kenyan commissioner for Sports, Mr. Gordon Olouch states that by December 2018, the sports bill of the country shall be pasased, and the country may start thinking to enhance the sports policies, although the process of implementing the bill started way back in 2002 (Blackshaw, 2017). Reports suggest that, so far, the country has had only one major investment in sports sector, which was the construction of the Moi International Sports Centre which happened to be an old relic that was eventually constructed in the year 1987 for All Africa Games. The stadium went unnoticed for many years until and unless a huge investment from the Chinese government swept in and the stadium was renovated. Another yet important investment in the sports sector of Kenya is the 30,000-seater Nyato Stadium that got constructed in the early 1980s (López-González et al,. 2017). The country’s most latest and promising infrastructure development and strategic intervention plan encompasses the Vision 2030 that includes the country’s most promising sports development action plans and the sports authorities are hoping to stretegically implement further developmental project plans based on these policies (Meese and Podkalicka, 2016). The future attributes for sports developmental strategic plan, according to sports officials include three flagship projects namely, the establishment of 30 local sports centres across Kenya, construction of a sports lottery fund and finally, the establishment of an international sports academy. The officials had stated that the new stadiums shall be constructed only in those places which lack such establishments. The offcials had aslo suggested that the Kenyan government is constantly trying to upgrade the facilities which were otherwise in a dilapidated condition till date. Mr. Olouch also stated to the news persons that the renovation work of the already pertinent stadiums with respect to the construction of a running track is under processing and the upgradation system has been under constant monitoring. The spokesperson of the country also states that it is going to be pretty difficult for the country to host Summer Olympics on 2032 as it is the biggest sports ceremony across the globe and in order to become eligible to host it without any intervention, Kenya needs to build at least six world-class state-of the art equipped stadiums just to organize the Olympics football matches, while the rest falls apart without any probability of discussion (Compton, 2015). Hence, it can be imagined to what extent the country needs investment, finance and other contingency grants in order to reshape and remodel its administrative infrastructure facilities to host the games.

Governance or the governing bodies that shall be responsible for framing and shaping up the country’s administrative system in order to bring out a bidding success for the organization of the 2032 Summer Olympics need to be ascertained fast by Kenya government. In this respect, the country’s first and foremost accomplishment is to affirm the attainability of soft power which is the principle of attracting attributes of behaviorism towards a specific country’s overview from others’ perspectives by means of attrcation and persuasion instead of coercion and payment. Kenya had introduced some of the leading soft power maifestations of which the institutes are the British Institute, the Goethe Institute, broadcasting channels such as BBC, CCTV, several awards and event programmes such as the Nobel Prize ceremony, beauty pageants and entertainment channels (Billings et al,. 2017). This attribute of soft power strategic intervention compelety relies on the country’s governance, tourism sector, embassies, networking, education, sporting excellence, think tanks and cultural background. Moreover, governance of the country also need to ascertain the aspect of sustainable legacy that will hold importance whilst looking at the country’s overview of administration. Is is quite imperative to suggest that a city that is thinking of hosting the Summer Olympics is no doubt a world-class city but as the interrogation of the congress spokespersons go, whether Nairobi truly falls under sustainable demographics or not. A sustainable city needs to ascertain its affirmity of being the world class city from every aspects including sustainable planning and infrastructure, as well as well planned city dominating and inhabiting indices for its inhabitants which shall showcase the city’s eligibility to host the world class participants and the official partners, that too in a responsible way. The sports minister of Kenya has stated that if the country receives the bidding positivity of hosting the games, then there shall remain motivation ad aspiration to work on their exisiting administration and infrastructure so that the city may shape up its ergonomics by the next 5 years in order to portray its effective eligibility to host the games in the year 2032. The successful candidature also enables the city and the hosting country to improve its diabolics and efficacy to a farflung extent with valoue-added efforts for its citizens for the upcoming years. The efforts and the strategies are been aligned with the bidding city’s administrative planning so that priorities are ensured and remain transparent efficient and impactful investments may get ascertained. Coming to the investment policy of the country (Kenya) for hosting the Olympics 2032, it needs to be looked upon the country’s current economic stature as because the financial condition of the country is at a downward condition as reports suggest (Burton and O’Reilly, 2016). The hosting of Summer Olympics require the hosting country to shelve out a huge amount of investment and the infrastructure impact is supposedly huge in these respects. But with a positive thinking, the country’s spokespersons are stating that the infrastructure impact of this hosting will be on a wide dimension on the country’s econimic persepctives and the citizens may get benefitted. There are talks of building up permanent infrastructure developments around the urban manifestation units. These constructions may be used up for future purpose with sports and recreational attributes, cultural forum and other kinds of socio-economic implementations. Hence, the entire country is focusing on the positivity of the bidding which shall eventually bring in a healthy environmental, cultural, social and economic impact on the country’s overall administration.  

Volunteers generally make the game happen in a proper manner. Volunteers are to be integrated to make the success of the Olympic game. They are basically called the ‘Games Makers’ as they help the game to happen successfully. They plan each and every event and also decide relevant changes in schedules.

Before every Olympic more than 240,000 applications are received for the volunteering task. In the last Olympic a total of 70,000 people were chosen as volunteers (Kumniget.al., 2015). They had played a wide variety of roles across different venues during the Olympic Games. The role starts from welcoming the visitors from different countries to transporting athletes to their respective venues. Volunteers also help in helping the management out with working behind the scenes with Technical things to help the technology team. They are also responsible for making technical success during the games.

So, it can be understood that volunteers are the lifeblood part of the Olympic Game. The volunteering program gets reviewed before every Olympic event. The volunteers should be well representing and efficient. Their working style should be very highly efficient to maintain a systematic rule and regulation during the Game. The volunteers should be well dressed and they should be comfortable in that dress or jersey so that they can carry out finely. The volunteers need to be spotted easily during the game. They should have distinctive uniform which should not match with anybody present in the venue. The volunteers also need guards so that their work is not affected in any way. They should have their unique identity proof (Holder, 2015). The volunteers are also the main face of the game. The whole management section of the game as well as the technology team is fully dependent on their work. Apart from that, they should be well aware in keeping an eye on the athletes too. With their functional uniform and other features they should be always ready to help in the game and play an affective role during the Olympic Games.

It has been decided that 2035 Olympic Games will take place in Kenya. It is a local Olympic played to establish a good social and environmental relationship between various countries that will be taking part in the Olympic Games. These activities will give them an opportunity to show their talent, fitness, courage, joy and athletic power and spirit. To be more précised, for all these activities, a good number of volunteers are needed. Exclusive communities are made to handle the selection of these volunteers. Volunteers are decided to select from countries all over the world (Wu et. al., 2016). By this a good social and environmental relationship will be easy to establish between all these countries. All the volunteers, as usual will be dressed in same costumes and work united in different sections according to the need. The volunteers will also be responsible for establishing a secure environment for the athletes and players in order to protect them from unwanted problems. These things are very important. A huge responsibility and the management of the game is totally dependent on these volunteers.

The 2032 Olympics bid proposal for Kenya (Nairobi), will be very important for Kenya. Every country wants to conclude Olympics on its soil due to various reasons. There are many sports fans around the globe (Pappas, 2014). As they will be looking forward to watch the best athletes coming from different parts of the globe and battling out for medals. The local businesses there will concentrate on ways they can generate profits from the game. With over a million of extra visitors that will be visiting to Nairobi, Kenya during the 2032 Olympics, the hospitality industry in particular will be gaining a lot from the events, with bars, restaurants, hotels and shopping malls all will be hoping for a boost in trade. All this will be benefitting the locals of the Nairobi those who will be looking for jobs in hotels, bars, restaurants or other types of hospitality employment. In fact, according to the data that has been released by the Office of National Statistic has shown that Olympics always put a measurable impact on the levels of employment in the organizing country. The ONS has also said that there had been considerable amount of fall in unemployment before Olympics, indicating that Olympics have created jobs (Ji, 2015). Well the Olympics may be providing a temporary boost to the sector, but what will be the long term effect to the hospitality industry? Will the jobs that will be created during the 2032 Olympics disappear as the closing ceremony will be nearing close, or Kenya may be use this opportunity to bring a permanent growth to this sector? We’ll all this will be depending on the government as well as the people of the Kenya how they promote the hospitality industry and how they make use of the property to generate profits and employment afterwards.

The Olympics are always a huge event and managing them is a mammoth task and that will be too in 2032 Olympics (Hubbard and Wilkinson, 2015). Managing materials and providing good quality foods to the athletes, to the guests as well as to the fans those will be gathering from different parts of the world will not be an easy job. The foods that will be served will be the main source of energy for the athletes, so maintaining its hygiene will be necessary. This will not only impact the city but will impact the country as well as the globe. This will be a challenge as well as an opportunity for the catering industry of Kenya. The 2032 Olympics in Nairobi, Kenya will give a boost to the catering industry and if they will be able to provide good quality food the media will be playing the rest of it that is promoting the food. This will be a huge benefit for the tourism industry of Kenya. The food lovers from around the globe will be visiting Kenya to taste its tasty meals. It will be important for Kenya to provide good food with hygiene, providing choices and balances, managing environment and providing its manpower with proper amount of skill and knowledge to convert the opportunity into success (Singh and Zhou, 2016).

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