The canton of Vaud, the City of Lausanne and the University of Lausanne have been designated by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs to ensure the creation of a new Global Observatory for Women, Sport, Physical Education and Physical Activity. The Observatory has been established as an incubating association, with support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). This new Observatory is aimed to help overcome global, systemic inequalities for girls and women in sport. The body has three main objectives. Firstly, it will guide governmental and non-governmental actors in designing action plans to achieve gender equality. Secondly, it will document and create harmonized evaluation methodologies for the independent monitoring of actions undertaken to promote gender equality. Finally, it will facilitate coordination and knowledge exchange among a large range of stakeholders in order to amplify the impact and dissemination of information related to gender equality. Through the Observatory, UNESCO will work in close collaboration with many key stakeholders including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and UN Women toward objectives like a minimum of 30 percent of women in the decision-making bodies of sports organizations, among others. The Observatory will contribute to the dynamics of the “Sport for Generation Equality” initiative, launched in November 2020 by UN Women with the support of Unesco. Today, in Europe, 45 percent of men play sport at least once a week against 37 percent of women, and inequalities have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis, Unesco reminded in its statement.

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