National Olympic Committee of Kenya, NOC-K has given sports federations in the country an ultimatum to meet the required gender ratio in their leadership in order to get grants from the committee.
Noc-K Secretary general Francis Mutuku who was speaking on day two of the ongoing Agnes Tirop Conference in Diani, Kwale County said that they will only fund federations that have a 60-40 percent gender ratio in their hierarchy.
‘’This year we have Commonwealth games and the Africa youth games, we have written to our federations and requested them that for all the composition of team management it has to be on a 60%-40% ratio for either gender. The most important thing is that no gender is excluded’’, Mutuku said.
Various Sports federations stand to benefit from the grants if they meet the threshold ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.
Mutuku acknowledged that women participation in leadership has since increased from 18 in Beijing Olympic Games to 48 in last year’s Tokyo Olympic which is encouraging.
“Women’s teams have proved to perform exemplary well despite their myriad of challenges, the Starlets, Vihiga Queens, the Malkia Strikers, the rugby and basketball women’s teams – The Lionessses, the women’s hockey teams, showing that if more resources are put into their development, they can do greater”,Mutuku remarked.
The Conference has brought together stakeholders to deliberate on mitigation of gender based violence in sports in the country. Former world cross country champion Agnes Tirop was killed in October last year in a suspected gender based violence incident.