International Women’s Day (IWD) is a worldwide event that celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

It is run annually on the 8th of March and the aim of celebrating it is to inspire for changes. An annual IWD campaign theme is kicked off worldwide with the aim to unify direction and provide a meaningful framework for the activities organized throughout the year. Across the world, this day is celebrated in different ways. In order to mark this day, Badminton Europe created a video for this special day.

This day is all about making a difference by taking concrete action to help determine change. Every small activity can have an influence on how quickly gender parity will be achieved and only by launching new initiatives and raising awareness of women’s achievements we can hope for progress.

Balance in gender representation
For the past few years, the BEC Women in Badminton Commission had as its Key Performance Index (KPI) to strengthen and establish the role of women in the badminton community, in order to have a balance in gender representation, as well as to motivate and inspire women to take up roles and get involved with badminton.

”The WIB Commission have put our thoughts in our strategic plan, but I hope to have much more input from the Member Associations and the badminton community. In my ideal badminton world there should not be the need for a Women in Badminton Commission in the future and the badminton world should choose on the individual's skills and not the gender.” Klavs Andreassen, Chair of the Women in Badminton Commission stated.

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Taking into consideration the statistics from last year, the aim of increasing female representation in the Commissions, the Board and the office staff has been achieved. The numbers grew from 5 female Commission members in 2016 to 10 in 2017, and from 3 staff members in 2016 to 4 staff members in 2017.

“I'm satisfied that BEC in our rules statues our support to have active participation of women on every level, and that the Board composed our Commissions with 10 female members out of the 15 external posts.”, Klavs Andreassen, added.

From the BEC Board of Directors and the BEC staff members, Happy International Women’s Day!