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Sports initiatives targeting women should be appealing to them and adapted to their needs, otherwise, there is little chance to observe an increase in women’s sports participation. To do this, a wide range of easy-to-implement solutions exist, including:

• Creating a survey to have a broad perspective of women’s sport in your city (focus groups are also recommended);
• Reaching out to the different sports stakeholders in your city (i.e. Fitness clubs, sports association, etc.) to get key statistics related to women’s sport.
• Involving women in the design and testing process of new sport equipment, facilities, etc;
• Creating evaluation systems to track the efficiency of sports policy in place in your city.

Schools are the best place to effect change and influence young generations. Educate and sensitize the entire teaching staff towards that matter is key to maximize girls’ participation in sports activities. This can be achieved by:

• Establishing a clear sport policy for 100% of pupils participation;
• Seeking girls’ opinion to develop tailored programmes and enlarge girls’ choice of sports activities;
• Creating a chart against sexism and other discriminative behaviour that girls experience;
• Ensuring the teaching staff is welcoming and supportive of all pupils, regardless of gender.

Joint forces always work better. While developing a strong national sport policy, make sure that ministers, the private sector and other stakeholders are highly involved. The collaboration among these different sectors can take several form, including:

• Support of organisations that develop innovative initiatives for gender equality within sports;
• Foster internal communication between women’s sections and associations promoting women’s sports practice.

Develop and support promotional activities for sport is crucial to raise awareness and engage with your population. A higher visibility of women partaking in sport activities will have a positive impact on women’s perception toward physical activity. This can be done by:

• Using renown female athletes as spokesperson and role model for girls;
• Developing promotional campaigns that encourage women’s sports participation;
• Encouraging media to communicate more about women’s sport.