The GAMES Pool of Actions has the scope to be a manual of concrete actions to promote gender equality in leadership positions among sports stakeholders whilst considering the different states of readiness and the political and socio-cultural barriers existing across Europe.
The GAMES Pool of Actions understands leadership positions as roles within the NOCs and other sports organisations such as President, Vice-President(s), Members of the Executive Body/Board, Secretary General / CEO, Chairs of Committees, Chef de Mission, staff with direct line-management responsibility and/or with a job title such as “director” or “head of…”
The GAMES Pool of Actions is structured into 3 main pillars which cover 9 key topics to tackle gender equality in sport leadership, as well as a series of transversal topics.
35+ actions divided between “fundamental” and “additional” across the three pillars.
15+ recommendations of the IOC and/or the European institutions across the three pillars.
10 complementary advocacy strategies across the three pillars.
8 transversal topics complementary to the three pillars and related topics.
40+ examples regarding the “fundamental” actions and transversal topics from NOCs/federations.
20+ Monitoring and Evaluation indicators
Gender equality is one of the founding democratic values of the European Union and a fundamental principle of Olympism. The International Olympic Committee, the European Olympic Committee, and many other European sport organisations have been working toward achieving gender equality in sports. Notwithstanding, despite the progress (e.g. athletes competing at the Olympic Games, many policies and strategies existing), gender equality in leadership and decision-making positions is lacking across European sports. Accordingly, different trends have been identified to reinforce the gender gap (e.g. vertical segregation, policy, structural procedures, values, attitudes, language); yet, these barriers should be better understood as being multi-layered dynamics that may favor/discourage gender-sensitive culture. Therefore, it is important to create changes within the organisations and their members that promote alterations to the structures, practices, and values of the organisation to concretely achieve the required changes to ensure gender equality in leadership and decision-making positions.
