On 6 July 2026, The High-Level Political Forum side-event From Call to Count: Gender-Responsive Energy Actions for the Final Mile convened one year after the Gender Indicators for Sustainable Energy: A Call-to-Action side event at last year’s HLPF. Bringing together Member States, United Nations entities, development partners, civil society, research institutions, and youth representatives, the event highlighted progress made over the past year while identifying the actions still needed to strengthen the integration of gender within the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 framework on affordable and clean energy. As the globe grapples with the reality of being “off-track” in achieving the 2030 Agenda, the “final mile” represents a critical opportunity to accelerate progress towards an equitable, just, and inclusive energy transition that places women at its center.
Where are we now?
Director of the ENERGIA Network, Ms. Sheila Oparaocha, opened the discussion by illustrating how clean energy is a critical enabler of gender equality. She highlighted its role in reducing the time burden associated with unpaid care and domestic work, expanding opportunities for women’s entrepreneurship and livelihoods, and strengthening women’s participation across the energy sector. Despite these clear linkages, she noted that SDG 7 still lacks a dedicated gender indicator.
Speakers further highlighted the scale of the challenge:
- Approximately 1 billion people continue to lack access to clean cooking solutions.
- SDG 7 has two global access indicators well suited for gender disaggregation:
- Access to electricity
- Access to clean cooking solutions
- If current trends continue, an estimated 900 million women could still lack access to clean cooking fuels and 320 million women could remain without electricity by 2030.
Participants also emphasized persistent gender imbalance across the energy sector. Member State representative, Ms. Bahia Tahzib-Lie from the Netherlands, noted that the energy sector continues to be one of the world’s least gender-diverse industries, underutilizing women’s skills, leadership, and innovation.
“When looking at barriers to leadership, it is critical not to think of women as a vulnerable group, but as half of humanity who are powerful agents of change.” – Ms. Antra Bhatt, UN Women
Regional evidence presented by Ms. Gloria Alvarenga from the Organization of Latin American and Caribbean Energy Organizations (OLACDE) showed that while women represent approximately 45% of the population across Latin America and the Caribbean, they account for only 24% of the region’s energy workforce. This indicates the need for targeted action to address persistent disparities.
What are we doing?
Speakers shared the progress and efforts implemented made since the 2025 Call to Action event.
Ms. Oparaocha presented ENERGIA’s country mapping initiative, undertaken in collaboration with the Energy Sector Management Assistant Program (ESMAP) within the World Bank, which reviews national surveys, reports, and databases to identify existing gender-energy indicators. She stated that the assessment uncovered “a data paradox: the data exists but it remains largely invisible.” Although many countries already collect gender-related energy data, these data often remain absent from official reporting and policymaking due to limited analysis, insufficient sex disaggregation, and a lack of harmonized reporting standards. These findings informed the development of the 2026 Policy Brief, which was launched at the HLPF.
Mr. Samson Bel-Aube Nougbodohoue highlighted the African Energy Commission’s (AFREC) efforts to integrate gender into regional energy data systems, methodologies, and statistical frameworks, reinforcing the importance of institutionalizing gender-responsive energy statistics across Africa. Additionally, Ms. Erin Tansey of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Professor Ed Brown of the Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) program shared AFREC’s collaboration with their respective institutions, to strengthen institutional capacity for gender-responsive energy planning. As part of this collaboration, MECS is supporting the development of a continental clean cooking roadmap, while IDRC is contributing to evidence-based research in the energy sector.
Representing OLACDE, Ms. Gloria Dolores Alvarenga shared that the organization’s 27 member countries are integrating gender variables into regional energy statistics to strengthen evidence-based policymaking and improve monitoring of women’s participation in the energy sector.
Where are we going?
Participants emphasized that stronger gender-responsive data systems will be essential not only for accelerating progress on SDG 7 in the final years of the 2030 Agenda, but also for informing the design of the post-2030 sustainable development framework and shaping future generations of energy policy.
As Mr. Josh Oxby of the SDG7 Youth Constituency remarked:
“Gender-disaggregated data cannot sit at the margins of SDG7 as a technical add-on, it has to become a part of how we understand whether energy access is delivering agency, affordability, decent work and leadership. This distinction is important for women and youth because visibility isn’t the same as voice, and inclusion isn’t the same as accountability.”
To advance this initiative, Mr. Leonardo Souza of the United Nations Statistics Division outlined practical steps, including the establishment of a dedicated task team under an existing statistical commission, supported by the SDG 7 Technical Advisory Group while remaining firmly Member State-led.
Ms. Antra Bhatt of UN Women further pointed out emphasized that strengthening gender-disaggregated energy data must go beyond measuring access alone. Future monitoring should capture women’s agency, intra-household decision-making, and other dimensions of empowerment that are not reflected in existing household-level indicators. She also cautioned that rapidly growing energy demand associated with artificial intelligence could divert attention and investment away from gender inequalities across the energy sector unless deliberate efforts are made to keep gender central to future energy policies.
The narrative that emerged from these discussions reinforced a shared message: improving gender-responsive energy data is not simply a statistical exercise, but a prerequisite for more inclusive policymaking, increase in climate financing, stronger accountability, and a just energy transition. As participants reflected on the final years of the 2030 Agenda, there was broad consensus that coordinated implementation efforts across Member States, stakeholders, civil societies, and research institutes is the critical next step to integrate gender-energy variables and create opportunities for women across all dimensions of the energy transition.
