The Asian Paralympic Committee held an Executive Board meeting and its 2021 General Assembly ahead of the 4th Asian Youth Para Games in Manama, Bahrain.
35 National Paralympic Committees attended the General Assembly which was held virtually. In his opening remarks, APC President Majid Rashed welcomed the newest member of the Asian Paralympic family, NPC Maldives.
He stated that whilst the pandemic prevented the Assembly from taking place in person and has caused so much suffering and disruption, “When I reflect on what has been achieved by us all since we last met, I am actually very proud. We have adapted to new ways of working; Our athletes trained at home when gyms and sports facilities were closed, meetings were shifted online. In-fact the APC took advantage of the space left by cancelled events to run our webinar series which I know was valued by many of you.
“And slowly we began to adopt the ‘new normal’ of life in a post-Covid world, with sports events starting up again. And our region was th
e home of the first major para-sport event when the Para Athletics Grand Prix took place in Dubai at the start of the year. And of course, one year later than planned, the Tokyo Paralympic Games took place with more athletes from Asia than ever before and fantastic performances from so many of them.
“We haven’t sat still at the APC, we now have a stable base in the UAE and have also forged new partnerships that can help all our members. I think throughout it all, we have all demonstrated the new APC values of Diversity, Solidarity and Sustainability.”
IPC President Andrew Parsons also joined the first day’s session from Brazil. Addressing the assembly at the start of the meeting, he praised the NPCs for their efforts in ensuring that the Tokyo Paralympic Games were a success and noted that the level of sport on display was stronger than ever, despite the challenges that the pandemic had caused.

The two-day Assembly saw the membership approve the financial reports and also vote for minor amendments to the APC Constitution which enable future General Assemblies to be held virtually or in a blended format and will also see a representative of the future host country for the Asian Youth Para Games join the APC Executive Board as Vice President. This means that a representative from NPC Uzbekistan will join the APC Board following the decision last month to appoint Tashkent, Uzbekistan as hosts for the next Asian Youth Para Games.