The ENERGIA network has for more than twenty years been building a substantial body of experience with approaches to gender mainstreaming in the energy sector. There is a need to document this experience in a systematic way that can be used to inform future work of ENERGIA, the network members and partners, and most importantly, other energy sector players. In order to do that, ENERGIA commissioned research by a small team of which the objective is to bring together lessons learned from gender approaches by ENERGIA and other organisations (in particular the World Bank’s Africa Renewable Energy and Access Program (AFREA) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)). The ultimate aim is to increase ENERGIA’s effectiveness, enhance ENERGIA’s role in setting the stage for other organisations and to inform policy development and practice about successful gender mainstreaming approaches.