IWG Attends European Summit on Gender Equality and Diversity in Sport

The IWG Secretariat travelled to Brussels, Belgium, on 18th April to attend the European Summit on Gender Equality and Diversity in Sport.

The event was hosted by the European Non-Governmental Sport Organisation (ENGSO) and its Equality Within Sport (EWS) Committee. The meeting gathered stakeholders actively working on gender equality in sport across Europe, with the express intention of identifying opportunities to work together and increase our collective impact.

Lisa O’Keefe, Secretary General, and Abby Burton, Head of Strategic Communications, represented IWG alongside Chair Annamarie Phelps CBE OLY who attended in her capacity as Executive Committee Member and Chair of the Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commission for the European Olympic Committee (EOC).

Also in attendance were representatives from the EU Sport Unit of the European Commission, the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) of the Council of Europe, the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation (EGLSF), the European University Sports Association (EUSA) and the Global Observatory for Gender Equality and Sport (GO).

Reflecting on the day, Lisa said: “The summit in Brussels was an incredibly valuable day spent with key partners from across the European gender equality in sport network, giving us all the opportunity to understand the priorities of each organisation, our plans for the year ahead, and opportunities for closer collaboration.

“We had useful and important discussions on how to better support each other’s respective projects, and we heard about some fantastic events, conferences, and research projects which we are looking forward to promoting to our digital network in the coming months.

“Creating a forum for key stakeholders to update on activity, develop a shared calendar, identify joint actions and to spend time discussing how best to collaborate in working towards the shared goal of gender equality in sport is vital to our collective success.

“A huge thank you to our colleagues at ENGSO for co-ordinating the summit, and in particular to our Global Executive member Sallie Barker for pulling together such an important discussion.”