Blog Series contributed by Energy 4 Impact – #1 of 3 Energy access and development practitioners seem to agree that ending energy poverty for the most deprived populations and achieving sustainable development is impossible without the involvement of women. Women are not only the users of household energy; if given the opportunity, they can play a critical role […]
Blog Series contributed by Energy 4 Impact – #3 of 3 A recent evaluation study examining the effectiveness of Energy 4 Impact’s Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) project in rural Senegal, reveals increased business acumen and confidence among trained women entrepreneurs, as well as increased awareness of clean energy products and their benefits among the local […]
By Melissa Ruggles* Ghana has made great progress towards equalising energy access this year with the launch of its Social and Gender Integration Plan (SGIP) in October. Ghana’s Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) will oversee implementation of the action plan, which aims to ensure greater energy equality by addressing social inequalities among men, women and vulnerable […]
By Melissa Ruggles and Shukri Abdulkadir, ENERGIA At the end of November ENERGIA and its research partners all gathered together thousand metres above sea level in Nepal for a workshop hosted by CRT-Nepal and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) on Research Area 3 (RA3): The Political Economy of Energy Sector Dynamics on 27 November […]
By Melissa Ruggles, ENERGIA The COP23 in Bonn ended nearly two weeks ago, and during the event a number of commitments were made and initiatives sparked. Among them was the launch of the People-Centered Accelerator on the 14th of November, announced by Rachel Kyte of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) alongside ENERGIA’s Sheila Oparaocha and […]
By Melissa Ruggles In Indonesia, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is the most widely used energy source for cooking, and it is specifically an important source of energy for 50% of the poor and near-poor households who can access it. However, due to the rising costs of the fuel, and thereby the subsidies, the Indonesian government […]
By Melissa Ruggles/ENERGIA In her speech leading up to the COP23 in Bonn (6-17 November), Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s top climate change official, highlights the need to “significantly increase our efforts to reduce emissions and our carbon footprints,” and that “women must be at the forefront” of driving those efforts. Espinosa and others have been […]
By Melissa Ruggles* 2,371 women entrepreneurs recruited, trained and mentored, leading to 772,925 people with access to cleaner energy. These figures show how ENERGIA and Solar Sister have been transforming clean energy access for people in Uganda, Nigeria and Tanzania since becoming partners in September 2014. For four years now, Solar Sister has been a […]
As the international coordinator and programme manager, Sheila Oparaocha is directly responsible for ENERGIA’s activities across the world. When she is not strategising, participating in conference calls and meetings at her office in the Netherlands, she is likely speaking at a high level forum, helping steer other organisations and efforts related to gender and energy, […]
Dr. Anita Shankar discusses agency building, ENERGIA’s work, and how women are empowered from the inside out. When you hear the word ‘agency’, the first thing that may come to mind is a physical entity, a building with people working away in an office, a travel agency, a recruitment agency, a government department, and so […]
A small team of Hivos team members and representatives from our host partner in Guatemala, Alterna Impact, went on a learning adventure on July 28 to meet with Guatemalan women entrepreneurs and learn about their needs and experiences around renewable energy. In the team were Raquel Chacón and Kattia Quirós from Hivos’ Costa Rica office […]
By Neva Nahtigal Kopernik, our partner in Indonesia, has been working to improve public understanding of issues related to women and energy access. At the core of their recent activities in pursuit of that goal is the Indonesian Women for Energy – or #IDWOMEN4ENERGY – campaign. As Kopernik’s communications officer Ina Saptiono explained, “This […]
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