Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam, April 14, 2025: The Chair of the OCA Gender Equity Committee, Olympic swimmer Valerie Tarazi of Palestine, presented the OCA road map for 2024-2027 on the opening morning of the second OCA Gender Equity Seminar in Brunei on Monday.
She said the road map would be based on five key themes and three levels of influence within the OCA. The five themes are participation, leadership and representation, media and portrayal, development, education and awareness, and grassroots.
The goals included 30 per cent female representation at all levels of the Olympic movement in Asia, in align with the IOC policy, and this included coaches, officials, administrators and executives.
Valerie pointed out that, of the 45 NOCs in Asia, only six had 30 per cent female representation on the executive board, leaving 39 NOCs falling short of the IOC recommendations.
Looking back on the Hangzhou Asian Games, 11 per cent of the Chef de Missions were female, 41 per cent of the athletes were female, 29 per cent of technical officials and 16 per cent of both team officials and technical delegates were female. OCA will strive for 50 per cent representation for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan in 2026.
The road map also urged NOCs to apply for the USD10,000 available for Social Development through Olympism and Education Programme, and introduced the OCA media campaign based on the “Watch Her Shine” theme.
In the future, the OCA Gender Equity Committee will have a booth at Asian Games to promote the movement. Her presentation also pointed out how NOCs can support the OCA by applying to host events such as the seminar, identifying a Specific Point of Contact, collect and report data and share NOC projects and best practices.
