Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 36 coun­tries on Sun­day at­tend­ed the AI­BA Con­ti­nen­tal Fo­rum for Amer­i­ca, which was or­gan­ised vir­tu­al­ly this year be­cause of the on­go­ing coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion.

The AI­BA lead­er­ship and the Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions of the con­ti­nent dis­cussed a num­ber of piv­otal is­sues, in­clud­ing re­forms, new AI­BA Com­mit­tees and the com­pe­ti­tion cal­en­dar, a de­vel­op­ment plan for Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions, a Com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy, a re­port from the le­gal group; they al­so held an an­ti-dop­ing sem­i­nar with the ITA’s Head of Test­ing, Mat­teo Valli­ni.

AI­BA pres­i­dent Umar Krem­lev claimed that the in­ten­tion of the con­ti­nent to im­prove is 'in­cred­i­ble'.

"I saw a lot of en­gage­ment of Amer­i­can Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions' rep­re­sen­ta­tives, even vir­tu­al­ly. I am very hap­py with their ea­ger­ness to fol­low the way of re­forms, to sup­port AI­BA and im­prove them­selves. I ap­pre­ci­ate their en­thu­si­asm and fresh ideas, which were dis­cussed. I am sure that soon we will see dis­tinct and even more pow­er­ful Amer­i­ca on the box­ing map," Krem­lev said.

Bri­an Lewis, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) de­liv­ered a speech about gov­er­nance trans­for­ma­tion and post-COVID-19 op­por­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges.

"Sport plays an im­por­tant role in so­ci­ety and in the econ­o­my. In the post-COVID-19 sports world, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is es­sen­tial for good gov­er­nance. This goes hand in hand with re­vised pol­i­cy frame­works and evolv­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture. To in­spire ath­let­ic and aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, to en­cour­age cap­i­tal ac­cu­mu­la­tion to fa­cil­i­tate the work­ings of mar­kets and strength­en in­sti­tu­tions is all our sub­stan­tial ob­jec­tives for the next fu­ture. More­over, we ex­pect im­proved and in­creased trans­paren­cy, ef­fi­cien­cy and eth­i­cal over­sight," said Lewis, un­der­lin­ing the im­por­tance of gen­der eq­ui­ty and the in­clu­sion of women in key de­ci­sion-mak­ing po­si­tions.

Os­val­do Bis­bal, AM­BC pres­i­dent in his speech stressed: "Amer­i­ca is a con­ti­nent with a lot of pow­er, box­ing tra­di­tion and de­vel­op­ment; we need to set up our de­vel­op­ment plan and start con­tribut­ing to the fu­ture of our box­ers and of­fi­cials. Al­so, it is high­ly nec­es­sary for us to cre­ate a box­ing acad­e­my for our box­ers, coach­es and of­fi­cials."

Dur­ing the ses­sion, the AI­BA de­vel­op­ment plan was pre­sent­ed.

De­vel­op­ment is a core mis­sion of AI­BA. The ob­jec­tives and goals re­flect the aim to holis­ti­cal­ly de­vel­op every facet of the sport. As such, all stake­hold­ers shall be pro­vid­ed with the nec­es­sary sup­port, ed­u­ca­tion and op­por­tu­ni­ties to achieve this pur­pose.

"We cre­at­ed the de­tailed de­vel­op­ment plan for NFs of the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent which con­sists of the im­prove­ment of sev­er­al di­rec­tions. AI­BA De­vel­op­ment team will dili­gent­ly work with the Con­fed­er­a­tion to as­sess each Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion, to eval­u­ate the evo­lu­tion of the com­pe­ti­tions on the con­ti­nent, to raise reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion of cer­ti­fied coach­es and of­fi­cials, to set up an on­line plat­form ded­i­cat­ed to ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes," AI­BA pres­i­dent Krem­lev said.

Be­yond that, com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy, in­clud­ing the cre­ation of a uni­fied in­for­ma­tion sys­tem, im­ple­men­ta­tion of dig­i­tal tools, and ex­tend­ed cov­er­age of 75 years of the glob­al box­ing cel­e­bra­tion, was dis­cussed.