Year 2024 in review - toward more gender equality in sport in Europe

With its new composition, the Equality Within Sport (EWS) Committee of ENGSO continues its efforts to advocate and promote gender equality and diversity in sport in Europe. In 2024, EWS organised an annual summit, several online seminars, on-site workshops at ENGSO events, represented Europe on the global stage, and kept pushing forward its messages for change: 2024 was another busy and productive year!

EWS Composition 


Grateful for the tremendous contribution from Sallie Baker over the years, Tarja Krum was appointed as EWS Chair and Sarah Townsend as EWS Vice Chair. They started a new mandate (2024-2026) with the rest of the committee members starting at ENGSO GA in Vienna, Austria (June 2024).

Two co-opted members completed the group in November this year. Meet the new EWS Committee members.

Summitt On Gender Equality
Photo: European summitt on gender equality and diversity

European coordination efforts

 

 

Marie Denitton, ENGSO Office Director was re-elected as Gender Equality Rapporteur at EPAS, Council of Europe.

EWS believes that common goals and coordinated efforts could lead to improving the work on gender equality in Europe. Therefore, EWS continued the conversation with organisations in Europe and gathered key sports stakeholders during a “European Summit on Gender Equality and Diversity in Sport”. This event was possible thanks to the re-granting mechanism of the CERV programme, awarded to ENGSO member OPES. The next edition of the summit will be organised on February 12th, 2025, in Luxembourg, at the occasion of the “All In Plus CoE project” final conference. Read more about the summit here.

 

On the initiative of the ESP 2024 host, the National Olympic Committee of Kosovo, ENGSO EWS organised and moderated the “EU-Balkan Networking event on Gender Equality and Diversity”. It gathered local actors from Kosovo (UN Women, Ministry, NOGs, ect) to share ambitions, goals and challenges, and to establish a united front in moving forward issues of gender equality in sport in Kosovo. Read more about the event here.

Capacity-building 

 

EWS aims to build the capacity of ENGSO members and their networks and provide platforms for knowledge sharing on gender equality. To do so, two online seminars were organised in 2024:

  • Every woman is welcome in sport – are they?” on March 4. Acknowledging that women are not a homogenous group, the seminar discussed how sport federations are ready to change. It marked the kick off the GAP Women project #Women’s Day campaign, presented the main learnings from EWS 2023 research and shared the “Change readiness” research and good practices from the CHANGE project. Read more about the seminar here.
  • Transforming Sports through Accessibility” on September 25. During the 2024 European Week of Sport, this seminar presented the organisation’s newly published guidelines for inclusive events and discussed accessibility of sport for people with disability, LGBTQI+ community and women. Read more about the seminar here.

EWS also coordinated and moderated the workshop on “Human Right and Equality in Sport” during the ESP 2024 in Pristina, Kosovo. Speakers discussed how human rights are experienced in sport from different perspectives (athletes, sport federations, research) and how to keep promoting them across Europe and beyond. Read more about the ESP 2024 here.

Awareness raising and advocacy

 

In 2024, the EWS committee members and ENGSO secretariat took part in more than 20 events to raise awareness and advocate for gender equality in grassroots sport. An estimated 2200 people were reached. For example:

 

  • As Gender Equality Rapporteur at EPAS, Marie Denitton, moderated a discussion during the EPAS Breakfast Roundtable on sport officiating and gender equality on International Women’s Day in Strasbourg, France. Read about the event here
  • Sarah Townsend participated in the UNESCO’s Policy Roundtable “Towards a Safer Playing Field – Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport” in Paris, France in April. The event discussed concrete ways to develop survivor-centred policies, processes and programmes and was a follow up on from the publication of the UNESCO and UN Women’s Handbook on Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport. Read more about the event here.
  • Alessia de Iulis delivered two workshops on “Youth empowerment and the importance of Mental health in sport” during the European University Games in June, in Hungary.
  • Chair Tarja Krum presented the initiatives of ENGSO on equality and diversity at the “Sport Square” of the “Let’s Be Better – Welcoming All in Sports” event organised by Finlands Svenska Idrott FSI in Helsinki, Finland, in December.

As part of its advocacy work, EWS started a monitoring research to measure the level of implementation of the policies and equality plan within sport organisations in the EU, focusing on challenges and barriers and creating focus groups to explore possible solutions to overcome them.

Finally, ENGSO communication channels were activated to convey key facts on inequalities and barriers to participation in sport, to promote existing EU strategies on gender equality and LGBTQ+, and to highlight the good practices at grassroots sport level. In December, EWS joined the “Orange the world” UN campaign to combat violence against women. ENGSO’s work on equality was highlighted as a success story of the CERV programme. Watch the video here.

 

Find more about EWS activities in 2024 on the dedicated page on ENGSO Education.

Represent Europe on the International Working Group on Women and Sport 


After the departure of Sallie Barker, Tarja Krum was elected on the IWG Women & Sport as the European regional representative. As such, she attended their working meetings (onsite and remotely) and networking events, such as on July 31st at the British Embassy in Paris (read more about the event here) .

 

In preparation of the IWG Global Summit (July 2026), EWS’s mission is to ensure that voices and concerns of all women in sport in Europe are represented, and to activate the women and sport network across the continent.

ENGSO equality projects and operational focuses

 

As part of its objective to ensure the successful implementation of the ENGSO equality projects, EWS took an active role on several occasions this year.

 

For example, EWS supported the GAP Women team in organising 2 online seminars, it contributed in the expert group of the CHANGE project on social inclusion and in several tasks of the SURE project, coordinated by ENGSO.

In 2024, two operational focuses influenced the work of the EWS committee: LGBTQI+ and sport for people with disabilities. Its successful delivery included initiatives on capacity-building, awareness raising, and research, as mentioned above, as well as:

 

  • Publication of the “Hosting Inclusive Events Accessibility Guidelines for ENGSO events”. These guidelines were developed to help event planners organise and coordinate the elements and activities necessary in creating events that take place in a welcoming environment for everyone. Download the guidelines here.

 

  • A programme for young advocates for equality was delivered in Marseilles, France. This event was framed as a legacy of an EGLSF event organised during the EuroGames 2024 in Vienna. Local organisations from Marseille will continue to offer regular sport sessions to vulnerable LGBTQI+ people, in preparation for a mobility action by participating in the EuroGames 2025 in Lyon, France. This activity was possible thanks to the re-granting mechanism of the CERV programme, awarded to ENGSO member EGLSF.

Find all resources on equality on ENGSO Education.

Follow EWS initiatives in 2025.