International Women’s Day: World Athletics’ focus on gender equity

On International Women’s Day (IWD) in 2021, World Athletics (WA) announced the #WeGrowAthletics campaign—an initiative designed to eliminate gender bias and work toward gender equity in athletics. Wednesday marks the start of the third year of this campaign, and WA has announced more pledges to take it even further. From increasing female representation in the WA Council to improving safeguard policies in all 214 WA member federations and more, the team at WA is set to make 2023 the most successful year that the #WeGrowAthletics initiative has seen to date.

#WeGrowAthletics when we #EmbraceEquity for women everywhere.

World Athletics celebrates #InternationalWomensDay by taking significant number of steps towards gender equity in 2023.

More details on concrete pledges and plans for 2023 here👇

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) March 7, 2023

More representation 

The WA Council consists of 26 members, each of whom come from different member federations (it’s a WA Council rule that no country can be represented by multiple members). There are gender requirements for the council, and this is the core of one of WA’s pledges for IWD 2023.

In 2019, there had to be a minimum of seven women and seven men represented by the council, but that will jump to at least 10 this year after the WA Council elections in August, meaning the council will be 40 per cent female. The plan is to increase that to 13 in 2027 (the next WA Council election), at which point the council will always feature a 50-50 split of male and female representatives. 

WA has also pledged to increase the number of female coaches at upcoming world championships. By the 2025 World Athletics Championships, which are set to be held in Tokyo, the total number of female coaches will jump “at least 20 per cent.” To accomplish this, WA will not only encourage member federations to send more female coaches, but the organization will also provide “the learning pathway in countries where women are underrepresented at the coaching level.” On top of this, there are plans to launch a mentoring program to “help women attain leadership roles” in all six continents that are represented at WA events. 

Safeguard policies 

Another big initiative for WA is the implementation of safeguarding policies from all of the organization’s 214 members federations. Federations must complete this task by the end of the year, and it is a key focus of WA’s for one very important reason: “to ensure our sport is a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.” Women in countries all over the world, including Canada, have been abused by people who hold positions of power in their sport, and WA is working to put an end to it. Promoting the enacting of these safeguarding policies and subsequently enforcing them will go a long way to not only protect women in sport, but to make everyone feel safe and secure no matter where they’re training or competing. 

To see WA’s other gender equity pledges, click here.