ASEAN Conference: Breaking Barriers, Building Champions Together

IWG’s Secretary General Lisa O’Keefe MBE and Global Executive member Etsuko Ogasawara were in attendance at the ASEAN conference on gender equity in sports in Penang, Malaysia, at the end of last month, where Lisa also delivered a keynote presentation.

As Chair of ASEAN 2025, Malaysia hosted the event under the theme ‘Breaking Barriers, Building Champions Together’, organised by the Malaysia Ministry of Youth and Sports to encourage ASEAN member countries to develop or build upon strategies and initiatives for women and girls participation in sports, aligned with the ASEAN Work Plan for Sports (2021-2025) and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The event brought together representatives from ASEAN member countries to hear from several international experts, share best practice and exchange views on how best to elevate and advance the role of women in sports, with a focus on leadership and coaching.

Lisa spoke on the importance of gender equality and learnings around what works when it comes to making change happen, using examples from signatories to the Brighton Plus Helsinki Declaration. As part of her presentation, she covered the growth in women’s sport in terms of revenue, investment and fanbase, pointing to the increasing recognition that sport is an essential tool for social change: building skills and experience that are vital throughout women’s lives.

From there, she highlighted the contradicting attitudes towards gender equality as Ipsos recently published before moving on to focus on the learnings of deliberate action and the importance of fixing the system, not the women – using examples from Sport Ireland and World Wheelchair Rugby to bring her presentation to life. Lisa finished her keynote by updating the audience on plans for the IWG Global Summit, which is taking place in Birmingham next year.

Prior to Lisa joining the stage, the event opened with keynote speeches from YB Hannah Yeoh, Minister of Youth and Sports, Malaysia and YBHG Tan Sri Dato’ SRI (Dr) Mohamad Norza Zakaria, Vice President, Olympic Council of Asia.

In her opening address, Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh emphasised the importance of creating equal participation in sport where women and girls have the same opportunity to engage, compete and flourish from community programmes to elite arenas. She emphasised the importance of male allies and deliberate action with clear, time-bound plans to grow the numbers of women in leadership and coaching roles in sports and achieving at least 30% women’s representation in sports leadership.

She also urged national action plans that include robust media strategies to highlight women’s contributions in sports along with efforts to address essential issues such as Safe Sport, noting that Malaysia has laid this foundation through the Safe Sport Code, launched in 2023.

Dr Norza Zakaria recognised the transformation taking place in sport as women increasingly step into leadership roles across all sector of sport. A change not only necessary for achieving gender balance, but crucial for unlocking new perspectives that will enrich and elevate the entire industry.

He concluded by calling on all delegates to actively engage in the conference discussions, share their insights, experiences and recommendations and to collectively establish resolutions that will create the most enabling and inclusive environment for women athletes, officials, administrators and leaders to flourish.