The 11^th United Nations All Africa Games kick off on Friday, 31 August 2018 at Ingwenyama Conference and Sports Resort in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The tournament is being hosted by the United Nations in South Africa.

The purpose of the UN Games is to promote a culture of peace and tolerance, mutual respect among staff and to emphasize the importance of UN’s ‘Delivering as One approach’.  The UN recognizes the value of sports towards public health and as a tool for raising awareness on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).       The theme for the UN Games 2018 is derived from the SDG 3, “Promoting Good Health and Wellbeing in the UN”.  Overall, the games are designed to raise awareness on the role of sports in achieving the SDGs by ensuring that all people live healthy lives, using sports as a tool for learning, promoting gender equality by encouraging female participation to challenge stereotyping, promote key values of teamwork, fair play, respect, discipline and tolerance, and to promote peaceful coexistence and strengthening partnerships for sustainable development.   The UN in South Africa Resident Coordinator, Nardos Bekele-Thomas, will be attending the event and will be joined by several UN resident coordinators from other African countries and several UN heads of agencies from different countries across Africa together with local VIPs and dignitaries.   The games are expected to bring together about 1,000 UN staff from 23 African countries who will compete in 12 sports disciplines ranging from, among others, soccer and netball to golf, swimming, tennis, darts, snooker and chess and other fun games such as sack races and tugs-of-war.