Association Of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF) Governance Report Released
The Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF) Governance Report was released earlier this week on 20 August 2018. It assessed all seven AIOWF member federations that compile the programme of the Olympic Winter Games.
The FIS Governance Survey for 2017/18 which was evaluated for the AIOWF Report showed strong progress since the first edition last year.
The overall score that FIS has achieved from the 50 questions, amounts to 150 points out of a maximum of 200, which elevates FIS into the A category of the International Federations and the leading Winter IF.
A short survey will be sent to the National Ski Associations in early September focusing on areas of governance that were delegated to the Council's Governance Working Group by the FIS Congress and Council. In addition the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF) has completed its second AIOWF governance review, which assessed all seven AIOWF member federations and the following media information was communicated yesterday:
The second edition of the IF governance review provides on-going monitoring of governance standards since the inaugural review in 2017, tracking improvements and sharing good practice between the IFs.
The same IF governance review questionnaire and evaluation process as used by the Summer IFs (ASOIF) has been adopted with independent moderation by sports governance consultancy I Trust Sport, to both of whom thanks are expressed for the valued collaboration.
In view of the much smaller footprint of AIOWF membership which is 25% of the size compared to ASOIF, averages should be treated with caution. Key findings include:
- The moderated scores of the seven AIOWF IFs range from 89 to 150 out of a theoretical maximum of 200 (from the accumulated result of 50 indicators with equal weighting scoring 0 to 4 points each)
- The mean score increased by 16 points. Based on the individual evaluations and the boost in scores, there have been notable improvements in AIOWF governance. The lowest overall score was 89 in 2018, compared to 64 last year.
- All AIOWF IFs published their full constitution or statutes and information about their member national associations, with the majority of Winter IFs also publishing financial information.
- Gender balance is an area of weakness with only one IF including more than 25% female representation on their Executive Board. All seven IFs have rules in place for electoral processes. Only two IFs presently have some type of term limit. Three of the winter sports have at least one athlete representative on the Executive Board with one more IF expected to follow shortly.
- Under the theme Development and Solidarity, the provision of education programmes for coaches, judges, referees and athletes is shown to be well established in most cases. The level of information available about development work had improved since the previous year with the majority of the seven IFs found to have a defined, transparent process for allocating resources in development objectives.
Gian Franco Kasper, AIOWF and FIS President said on behalf of the Winter IFs: “Our federations have embraced the governance review process and appreciate the valuable exchange of good practices. Even though we are seven autonomous organisations, the sharing of governance practices benefits the Sports Movement as a whole. The governance work is a key element of our role as International Federations that we will continue to evolve on an on-going basis.”
