The secretariat works throughout the year to empower women and girls to participate in sport and serves as a medium to highlight relevant issues and share knowledge.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance’s bid received support from more than 100 bodies, including Sport England, sportscotland and Sport Wales.

The chief executive of the Alliance, Lisa Wainwright MBE, is delighted that the UK can play a leading role in addressing barriers to women and girls taking part in sport.

"The benefits of hosting the IWG will be profound,” said Wainwright.

"For the UK to become a true thought-leader in community sport, physical activity and volunteering, it needs to identify innovation, projects and best practice that are working and having real impact, whether in the UK or across the globe.

"In this role we will be able to proactively reach out to different parts of the world to identify and learn from what other nations are doing to support women and girls through community sport and recreation.

"The opportunity for the UK to serve as secretariat to the IWG will prove a major opportunity to be global leaders.

"I would like to place on record my sincere thanks to all of the stakeholders, ambassadors and partners who enabled us to submit a world-class bid, and we look forward to working with you all as we bring the IWG back to the UK in 2022 through to 2026."

The headline event included as part of this development is the ninth IWG World Conference on Women & Sport in 2026

This usually features more than 1,500 global experts and is the world’s largest conference striving for gender equity in sport and physical activity.

New Zealand are hosts of the IWG Secretariat for 2018 to 2022 and the World Conference next May.

The conference was first held in Brighton in 1994.

It was organised by the British Sports Council and its declaration was updated in the Finnish capital Helsinki to become the Brighton plus Helsinki 2014 Declaration on Women and Sport.

It has been signed by more than 550 organisations, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and FIFA, and features 10 principles that seek to allow women and girls to be involved with sport and physical activity freely and safely.

The IWG works with agencies including UN Women, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Health Organisation to drive changes that fulfil this goal.

Annamarie Phelps CBE OLY, the chair of the UK’s bid, vowed to build on the IWG’s work in recent years.

"We are thrilled to have been given the honour of taking on the role of host secretariat for this prestigious group and will endeavour to build on the wonderful legacy already created by those nations who have held this position before, including our predecessors in New Zealand," Phelps commented.

"Central to the UK’s bid was the pledge to ‘share’ and to learn from others through sharing.

"During our time as host secretariat, we will be inclusive of all cultures and identities; commit to mutual learning; and operate as global citizens with a collective responsibility to progress sport for women and girls in a way that is sustainable for the sport system and future generations.

"We look forward to welcoming the world and pushing forward conversations which challenge the status quo, re-evaluate and reinvent how sport works, and harness the power of sport as a driver for social change and social equity."

Sally Munday OBE, the chief executive of UK Sport, outlined the country’s aims as host secretariat.

Munday said: "It is an extremely proud moment for all of our partners – and everyone involved in sport across the UK – that we have been announced as the next host secretariat.

"As part of UK Sport’s new mission, we want to drive increased collaboration and harness the power and platform of sporting success to drive change across wellbeing, diversity, inclusion and sustainability.

"Recent research that we have undertaken into female representation in international sports governance in particular has found that women continue to be significantly underrepresented and that a more nuanced approach may be needed to achieve greater progress toward gender equality.

"Through being the next host secretariat, we want to explore those approaches, challenge the status quo, empower even more women and girls to take part in sport at any level and demonstrate what is possible.

"A brilliant legacy has been left by those hosts before us and we will embrace that and actively support, champion and drive reform in the international sporting system."