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The postponed 2020 Finals of the Billie Jean King Cup will see women share the largest annual fund in women’s team sports equalling the amount awarded in the men’s competition.

However, whilst the pay-gap in elite tennis is closed in terms of prize money and tennis performs well in terms of global participation with 47% female participants, significant off court challenges remain: 20% of coaches and 22% of certified officials are women, and female representation on ITF’s board sits at only 18%.

A 2020 ITF leadership survey highlighted the importance of female role models as one of the most important factors influencing women as they develop their careers. With the goal of increasing the number of women on and off the court, including those in decision making and leadership roles, ITF established the Gender Equality in Tennis Committee (originally called the Women in Sport Committee) in 2017 chaired by USTA president and ITF Vice President Katrina Adams. The following year, with the support of the Foundation for Global Sports Development (GSD), the Advantage All programme was launched including enhanced funding for workshops, education and professional development for up and coming female leaders, including coaches and officials.

BENEFITS
• Having a gender equality strategy establishes clear objectives and targets for an organisation and its stakeholders to advance gender equality.
• The development of female leadership facilitates sustainable change in closing the gender gap and achieving equal representation.
• Ensuring equal opportunity in sport maximises commercial opportunities.

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World Rugby launched its “Accelerating the Global Development of Women in Rugby 2017-2025" development strategy in order to position itself as a global leader in sport where women have equity on and off the field with representation and participation across all levels of rugby by 2025.
The strategy is built around five pillars:

• Sustainable growth in participation: continuing successful grassroot programs such as "Get into Rugby” for entry level and the development of coaches, match officials and medical staff to accommodate for this growth and developing toolkits, such as the Women Coaching Rugby Toolkit, to support member federations in growing female participation across the sport.
• High Performance Quality Competitions: ensuring the sport can deliver high-quality competitions at every level and across all different formats of the sport with a high entertainment value. The focus is set on both domestic and international competitions.
• Inspirational Leadership on and off the field: mandating that World Rugby’s board, committees, working groups and senior management levels should reflect best practices in terms of female representations
• Profile with Impact Inspiring Engagement: working to attract female viewers and fans through marketing and media initiatives using communication across the board and enhancing the portrayal of women in rugby on all communication platforms.
• Strategic Sustainable Investment Partners: ensuring economic sustainability by focusing on new revenue streams and creating new long-term commercial and non-commercial partnerships to support the development and profitability of women in rugby and maximizing the commercial value of the sport by ensuring broadcasting visibility through all commercial deals.

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made great progress in promoting gender equality in terms of balancing the total number of athletes participating at the Games, offering leadership development, advocacy participating at the Games, offering leadership development, advocacy and awareness campaigns, and more recently appointing more women to leadership roles within the administration and governance. The priority of gender equality is reaffirmed in the Olympic Agenda 2020, Recommendation 11.

Meanwhile, many Olympic Movement stakeholders have also implemented significant gender equality initiatives so that girls and women are being given greater access and the opportunity to participate in sport.
However, there are still many challenges which need to be addressed, and the pace of progress is slow, particularly in this fast-paced environment.
To address those challenges, the IOC Executive Board (EB) launched the IOC Gender Equality.

Review Project on 16 March 2017 with a mandate to “push gender equality globally” with “action oriented recommendations for change.”

The adoption and implementation of these project recommendations will fulfil the IOC’s obligation under the Olympic Charter “to encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures.” It would also significantly contribute to the gender equality objectives of Goal 5 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Promoting gender equality not only enhances the positive reputation of the IOC, it demonstrates corporate social responsibility to our commercial partners and it utilises the influence of the IOC to benefit society at large.
The positive impact of gender equality is well documented by social science research and business management studies.

Gender equality within the Olympic Movement creates opportunities for women to participate in public society and allows for women to contribute in roles of influence and decision-making responsibilities. It encourages physical activity and healthy lifestyles for women and girls. It encourages diversity of opinion, a key component of good governance and risk management.