12 Jun 2016

Preparations to host the Africa women and sport conference are said to be at an advanced stage.

The International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG) is expected to host 225 delegates from Africa on October 14-15, this year.

IWG resource mobilisation manager, Changu Siwawa told BOPA in an interview that she was confident that Botswana would deliver a successful conference, after gauging themselves by a workshop which was held on Saturday.

The objective of the workshop, she said was set about following the need to have a work plan for all the organising committees.

She said the workshop was mainly focused on the Africa women and sport conference, which would be used as a test to gauge if they were ready to host the seventh IWG World Conference to be held in Botswana from May 17-20, 2018. 

She said she was happy because they had resources locally that could pull off a very successful conference. 

Currently, Siwawa said they were working on having the private sector on board and investing in the coming conference, and also showing them the benefits of hosting such a big conference.

“We want everybody, private sector, entrepreneurs and all stakeholders to benefit from the conference and also to help in closing gender inequality,” she said.

She said there was no doubt that sport could be used  for development and as a tool to  reduce the health bill given that some health issues were feminised adding that research had indicated that sport had potential to reduce health issues.

Furthermore, she said sport could increase people’s confidence, self-esteem and depression; hence they want all stakeholders to be involved to learn from different experts. 

Talking about the Africa conference, she said its main objective was to discuss women and sport issues in Africa and to share best practices and exchange ideas as a region.

She said the Africa conference would be targeting amongst others member states, scholars, researchers, athletes, administrators, public and private sector organisations with interest in sport, media, and women in sport businesses, companies dealing with feminine products. 

Meanwhile, some of the topics to be discussed during the conference include amongst others, gender mainstreaming into sport, influence of culture in women and sport, the role of media in women’s sport in Africa and inclusion in sport.ENDS