The Montreal Tool Kit—A Manual for Change

The Montreal Tool Kit was developed for the Third World Conference on Women and Sport as a reference manual containing 20 tools to help women activists working to increase women's participation in sports. The manual includes tools on advocacy and awareness-raising, such as "Creating an advocacy strategy" and "Non-sexist sport commentary for media"; tools for changing organizations, such as "Terms of reference for a Women and Sport Committee" and "Sample harassment policy"; tools for individual development, such as "Building a case for mentoring"; and other tools for action, such as "Measuring your success".

World Conference, held in May 2006 in Kumamoto, Japan,³⁰ concluded with the Kumamoto Commitment to Collab­oration, which expressed participants' commitment to building a collabora­tive network in order to realize gender equality in and through sport.³¹

Regional processes

Regional bodies also address gender equality issues in sport. For example, in 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed rec­ommendation 1701 on discrimination against women and girls in sport. The recommendation calls on the Commit­tee of Ministers to promote women's sport and women's participation in sport; accord greater importance to school-based physical education for women and girls; conduct awareness-raising among officials in sport, edu­cation and health; support women's participation in top-level sport; ensure equality in terms of pay, prize money and bonuses; ensure that women play a greater role in ruling bodies of sports organizations; conduct an in-depth study of national sport policies; ensure collection of gender-specific statistics; and increase media coverage of women in sport.³² The recommen­dation also calls for the combating of sexual abuse in relation to sport, which follows on from the 2000 Council of Europe resolution on the prevention of sexual harassment and abuse of

women, young people and children in sport (3/2000).³³

In 2002, the African Sports Confed­eration of Disabled (ASCOD) estab­lished a policy on disabled women's and girls' participation in sport and rec­reation. The policy aims to increase the participation of women and girls at all levels of sport and recreation in order to achieve gender equality, and calls on the Confederation and its member nations to bear the duty of advising Ministers of Sport on ways to meet the targets set out in the policy.³⁴

In 2001, the first Asian Conference on Women and Sport, held in Osaka, Japan, led to the establishment of the Asian Working Group on Women and Sport (AWG). The Working Group developed the Asian Women and Sport Action Plan 2001, which sought to expand equal opportunities for women and men and girls and boys in Asia to participate fully in sport.³⁵ The sec­ond Asian Conference, held in Qatar in 2003, adopted the "Doha Confer­ence Resolutions", which encouraged all parties to actively support women and sport.³⁶ The "Yemen Challenge", adopted at the third Asian Conference in Yemen in 2005, emphasized the importance of continued promotion and development of women in sport in Asia and included a request for all Asian Governments and National Olympic Committees to formulate a national women and sport policy by

the 2006 Doha Asian Games, and to include therein a special chapter on women with disabilities.³⁷

The Commonwealth Games Federa­tion also promotes the role of women in sport as participants and as decision-makers. Regulation 6 of its March 2006 Constitution states that the Common­wealth Games retains its status as a leader in promoting gender equality, and that future programmes in sports will have a balanced participation and profile for males and females. Article 17 of the Constitution also states that both women and men shall contribute at least 20 per cent or two of the repre­sentatives on the Executive Board and on the Sports Committee and any other committees and commissions formed by the Executive Board.³⁸