National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are in line to receive a funding boost from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to aid refugee athletes living in their countries.

The IOC’s Olympic Solidarity development and assistance budget has been raised by 16 per cent, from US$439.9m (£348.1m, €404.2m) over 2013-2016 to US$509.3m (£403m, €468m) from 2017-2020.

Olympic Solidarity proposes 21 programmes, with a focus on two new initiatives.

The first is the Refugee Athlete Support programme, which will provide NOCs the opportunity to “identify and support a small number of refugee athletes” to prepare and participate in international competition.

It follows the creation of a refugee team for the recent Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and takes into account the huge number of refugees being created by the war in Syria, among other places.

The second initiative is the Athletes’ Career Transition programme, which gives NOC’s the means to support athletes at “various stages of their career” through financial or pastoral measures.

NOC’s will be offered financial support by the IOC to fund various Athlete Career Programmes.

“This increase shows that the athletes remain at the heart of all our activity,” said director of Olympic Solidarity, Pere Miro.

“The success of the Olympic Games Rio 2016 also means that the Olympic Movement continue to enjoy a sound financial situation,” he added. “This enables us to distribute more than half a billion dollars over the next four years to the NOCs.”