Pearl Dlamini, a member of the IBA's Board of Directors and chair of its Diversity Commission, outlined a series of proposals that aim to help readdress the gender balance in coaching when speaking at the organisation's Women and Sport Conference here.

According to statistics presented by Dlamini at the meeting, just 419 women are registered by the IBA as coaches compared to 8,400 men.

Dlamini insisted that more needed to be done to tackle the shortage having only seen a small number of female coaches participating at this year's Women’s World Championships in Indian capital New Delhi.

"That gap is so much," said Dlamini.

"Only 4.7 per cent of women are coaches so something needs to be done to address that.

"Most of the coaches that are attending this event are men.

"What happened to our beautiful ladies?

"Where are they?

"What happened to our retired boxers?

"Where are they?

"We need to put them as our female coaches.

"Maybe it's time to look into those issues and opportunities."

Dlamini was speaking before participating in a panel session called "Level Canvas - Equal Opportunities" which aimed to discuss how to break down the barriers to women's participation in sport.

She said she was pleased that there was a gender balance on the IBA Board of Directors and among the organisation's staff, but wanted policies to be put forward.

Among those includes enforcing each national team to have a female coach, putting in place a woman quota on National Federation Boards, bringing back the Women Leadership Capacitation Programme and "intentionally directing" funds towards women's boxing promotion initiatives.

"Each national team must have a woman coach, that means that they will be forced to go out and recruit women coaches and put them in training so they will be quality," added Dlamini.

Priyanka Verma, who became the first woman to become part of the Nepalese boxing coaching team, said she had been "frustrated" by the lack of female coaches at the World Championships and felt "uncomfortable" being in a male dominant area.

"It's difficult to be a female coach in Asian countries like Nepal," Verma told insidethegames.

"Since I was the first one, people say 'why and how did you do it?'

"There were no role models to get the coaching position.

"I got into it because during my boxing career I couldn't get a familiar relation with the male coaches, and they can't relate to our health problems.

"I decided to become a coach.

"I think the IBA should launch various programmes around women's coaching."

Chris Roberts, IBA development director, said the organisation had recently launched a programme with the aim of certifying 1,000 new one-star coaches.

"What is interesting about it is that we have seen a lot of female application," said Roberts.

"We have run two courses already and we are looking to keep rolling that out over the next six months.

"Just looking at the statistics, we need to grab hold of those and make that wider public to make sure we have more female coaches.

"We have got 325 boxers here.

"What we would like to try to do is have a pull through effect.

"What do they do next?"

When asked what is holding back female boxers from becoming coaches, Roberts added: "I think it's a bit historic.

"It has clearly been a male dominated environment.

"We need to advertise the courses to bring people in.

"At National Federations, we see a lot of female coaches but it's about bringing them forward into the international space.

"It's a good point about the Women's World Championships that we see a lot of male coaches.

"That's something we need to look at."