Colombo, 13 June 2023
On June 12th to 13th, 2023 WADA Regional Office of Asia Oceania in cooperation with the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Anti-Doping Agency (SLADA) organized the 18th Asia Oceania Regional Intergovernmental Ministerial Conference on Anti-Doping in Sport, conducted in Colombo. The conference was attended by approximately 35 delegations consisting of few related Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Director Generals, Chairmen of NADOs and those representing both governments or NADOs. Meanwhile, Indonesia was represented by Chairman of IADO Gatot S. Dewa Broto and Asisstant to the Deputy on Center of Sports Achievement Supervision of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The conference was officialy opened by the Minister Mr. Roshan Ranasinghe, accompanied by President of WADA Mr. Witold Banka, Director General of WADA Mr. Olivier Niggli, and the Chairman of SLADA Mr. Prof. Arjuna De Silva.
The conference played an important role, because it enabled WADA to catch up the various aspiration of all anti-doping stakeholders of the region for instance the election process for the Asian Regional WADA Foundation Board member representatives. Another issue was related to the funding formula. On the other side, WADA used the forum to share and sometimes remind all Signatories to the 2021 Code i.e., the National Anti- Doping Organizations (NADOs) and the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) acting as NADOs with the assistance of the Regional Anti-Doping Organizations (RADOs) in the Asia and Oceania regions to implement the Code and International Standards through the provision of quality anti- doping programs and fulfil the monitoring requirements under the guidance of WADA.
For Indonesia, its participation was very important. After being suspended by WADA on the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, IADO as the NADO of Indonesia has tried to reform significantly in order to comply with the Code. It is in fact not so easy to fulfill all of the requirements of WADA. However, due to the solid teamwork and efforts to be consistent to communicate to WADA and SEARADO, now IADO is getting better compared to the previous years. By joining the conference, IADO and the government (represented by dr Bayu Rahadian from the Deputy 4 of Sports Achievement of the Ministry of Youth and Sports) could get current issues to what the government to do to back up IADO. The support from the government is so far quite proper, it should be however increased, because there are various fields and activities IADO (representing a big country of Indonesia with various national and international events) should do it.