The International Olympic Committee’s ‘Agenda 2020’ is a series of reforms that include sweeping changes to the host city bidding process. But will the changes be effective and do they go far enough?

Following the implementation of the Agenda2020, the International Olympic Committee has begun the work of reforming the 120 years old organisation. First steps have been to amend the bidding process, establish a whistleblower hotline and making the indemnities of the IOC members public.

In a letter sent to the IOC president Thomas Bach, a coalition of NGOs, sports groups and trades unions recommends that the IOC includes labour and human rights standards in the 2024 Olympic Host City contract.

With the Agenda 2020, the IOC is reaching out for opportunities to increase its influence in peripheral areas as a way of deflecting the focus away from what is really an increasingly vulnerable position, says Christer Ahl in his first column of 2015.

With the approval of the Agenda 2020 reforms, IOC President Thomas Bach cemented his own power basis. The question is if he also re-established the power of the IOC in a changing sports world. Andreas Selliaas gives a personal account from the IOC session in Monaco.

It may leave many crucial questions open. But by accepting president Thomas Bach’s Agenda 2020 reform programme unanimously, the IOC has set the yardstick that it will be measured by for many years to come.

With the Agenda 2020, the IOC has raised high expectations about change and it would be suicidal for the Olympic movement to betray its grand promises, says Antoine Duval in this comment.

The IOC has released the 20+20 recommendations for IOC president Thomas Bach’s 2020 Agenda that is supposed to bring about a reformed IOC. Main points in the proposals are sustainability and changes in the bidding process. Good governance is suggested being upheld via self-evaluation.