Focal area: Womens economic empowerment
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Supporting last-mile women energy entrepreneurs: What works and what does not
ENERGIA has been working on the intersection of energy access and women’s economic empowerment through its Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme. This document presents ENERGIA’s four-year journey to create and upscale women-centric energy enterprises that sell safe, reliable and affordable energy solutions to low-income consumers in underserved areas. It is a self-reflection, undertaken collectively by…
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Supporting last-mile women energy entrepreneurs: What works and what does not
ENERGIA presents a new publication “Supporting last-mile women energy entrepreneurs: What works and what does not”. The document looks at the lessons learned, unsuccessful and productive strategies over a four-year journey on the field with five leading partners working in developing women’s enterprises in the renewable energy sector in hard to reach areas. …
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Women’s Energy Entrepreneurship: A Guiding Framework and Systematic Literature Review
To investigate the existing evidence and to identify gaps in understandings around gender and entrepreneurship in the energy sector, we undertook a systematic literature review (SLR) of policy papers, grey literature and academic peer-reviewed papers. With the resulting sample of publications and reports, we examined the quality of evidence clarifying how women’s energy entrepreneurship may…
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How Suku Maya Majhi is contributing to energy access for all by selling clean cookstoves
Suku Maya Majhi is preparing the Nepali Dal Bath, with lentils and steamed rice in her new kitchen, equipped with an on-site built improved cookstove (ICS) which replaced the old traditional stove.
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Last Mile Learning: Why Small Solutions are Making a Big Impact
While many in the energy sector are of the mindset that bigger is always better, Solar Sister knows from both experience and data that for people living in last mile communities, small clean energy solutions can have transformational impacts. Solar Sister’s approach focuses on “first light, last mile.” This means that we prioritize reaching customers…
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Last Mile Learning: The Power of Social Networks
Growing from 10 to 3,000 entrepreneurs, Solar Sister has learned many lessons about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to recruitment of women in clean energy value chains. Identifying women who will thrive in our unique business opportunity is critical to scaling Solar Sister’s last mile distribution. Over the past eight years, Solar…
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When a dream comes true: Neha Shrestha and her story of beauty
Neha Shrestha is 22 years old. Thanks to the ENERGIA and Centre for Rural Technology Nepal Women’s Economic Empowerment project, she was able to pursue her dream. Now, she owns a beauty parlour shop in Sindhuli district, Nepal. Life goes really fast in some parts of the world. But not in the Sindhuli valley,…
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A life as Wonder Woman in Indonesia with Kopernik
Yoselvina Kune, also known as Mama Selvi, is a Christian priest living in Oekam village, a small village three hours away from Kupang, Indonesia. She is part of Kopernik’s Wonder Women Program, an initiative to empower women becoming sales agents of clean energy technologies, such as solar lights, water filters and cookstoves. By selling solar…
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“If we walk together, we can do it”
By Tjarda Muller and Melissa Ruggles On this International Women’s Day 2018, we celebrate women—and the need to further empower women—everywhere. Supporting women energy entrepreneurs is at the core of our Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme. Together with partners in six countries, we support over 4,000 women to become empowered entrepreneurs. Today, we share the story…
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Last Mile Learning: How local assistance and trust motivate last-mile customers
MIT CITE research finds that Solar Sister’s model built on social networks and women entrepreneurs is reaching last-mile consumers. Research also shows that last-mile consumers place considerable importance on local after-sales services and purchasing from people they know and trust when it comes to solar energy. Read full entry.
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ENERGIA’s Sheila Oparaocha at the SDG7 Conference
In Bangkok, the SDG7 conference is well underway and ends tomorrow on 23 February. The conference on SDG7 is a global preparatory meeting in support of the review of SDG7 at the 2018 UN High-level Political Forum. ENERGIA’s Sheila Oparaocha addressed the audience at the opening plenary session on the second day of the conference. She spoke about energy access and the…
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Senegal takes a giant leap towards gender mainstreaming in national energy policies and programmes
Blog Series contributed by Energy 4 Impact – #2 of 3 After three years advocating for gender mainstreaming in national energy policies and programmes in Senegal, Energy 4 Impact with funding from ENERGIA*, has achieved important milestones: The SEforALL national documents, the Action Agenda and the Investment prospectus integrate a comprehensive gender perspective with clear…