Gender equity is one of the key goals of the Olympic Movement and the IOC's Women and Sport Commission has been working for greater parity between men and women - both on the sporting field and in sports administration. As part of its Women and Sport policy, the IOC established targets in 1996 for women's membership of the executive committees of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and International Sports Federations (IFs). The targets stated that women were to hold at least 10% of executive decision-making positions in NOCs by December 2001, rising to at least 20% by December 2005. A study commissioned from Loughborough University in 2002 to 2004 (Henry, White et al., 2004) indicated that significant, though not universal, progress had been made in relation to the achievement of the 10% minimum membership target for women within EQUAL MEASURESPROFESSOR IAN HENRY, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR OLYMPIC STUDIES AND RESEARCH AT LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY, LOOKS AT GENDER EQUALITY AND LEADERSHIP IN OLYMPIC BODIESNOC executive committees.A further study was commissioned by the IOC in 2008 from the Centre for Olympic Studies and Research at Loughborough (Henry & Robinson, 2010) with a remit to review electoral strategies for gender equity in relation to key posts in the executive committees of NOCs and IFs (specifically those of president, secretary general, and treasurer). The research underpinning this second report involved a postal survey of all NOCs and IFs, focusing on the position of women in their Executive Committees, and interviews with 11 female NOC presidents, 18 female secretary generals, together with IOC members, members of the board of Continental Associations of NOCs and other influential leaders (a total of 36 interviewees). In this article we provide a brief summary of selected data from this study, and identify some of the key findings.Overall, the situation for women appears to have been continuing to improve, albeit marginally. In total, NOCs responding to the survey (which had a 53.7% response rate) reported that women held 17.6% of the positions on their executive committees, while for IFs that figure was 18% (with a 70.4% response rate). The overall proportion in which the numbers of women on executive committees increased was 31.3% and 20% for NOCs and IFs respectively.The situation in each of the continents is by no means uniform. At the time of conducting the research, Africa had the highest proportion of female NOC presidents (7.5%), followed by Europe (6.1%), Americas (2.4%), Asia (2.3%) and Oceania (0%). However, this last continent had the highest proportion of women as executive committee members (over 25%). In terms of female secretary generals, Europe ranked the highest (14.3%), followed by Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia (this last one with 4.5%).In terms of women standing for ? 56 OLYMPIC REVIEW OLYMPIC RESEARCH CORNER

OLYMPIC REVIEW 57OLYMPIC RESEARCH CORNER