Despite making up 39 percent of the global workforce, female participation in the energy sector remains dismal, with less than 20 percent of the energy industry workforce being women in 2023. While the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reports higher female participation in the renewable energy sector at around 32 percent, female voices often do not make it to the decision making process as a majority of women occupy administrative roles.
With support from the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and 2X Global launched a project to enhance outcomes for women working in the clean energy sector in Latin America and Africa through applied research. ANDE has offered financial support of up to US$ 60,000 to six promising research teams to conduct applied research with the goal of better understanding the current dynamics and means to increase female engagement in the clean energy sector in Latin America and Africa. ANDE’s collaboration is one of 12 research projects in the renewable energy sector that the IDRC has implemented through its Clean Energy for Development: A Call to Action (CEDCA).
These six research studies take diverse approaches to building actionable evidence regarding women serving as entrepreneurs, employees, and consumers in the transition to clean energy. Importantly, each team is made up of a research partner and practitioner partner to ensure that evidence is rooted in real-world solutions that can be replicable.
Studies to support women entrepreneurs:
Three studies will delve into the resources that are geared at aiding women entrepreneurs in the clean energy sector. Researchers will explore modalities for entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) that could help female entrepreneurs secure the necessary skills, financing, and network to excel in their respective regions.
Mujeres Empresarias & Universidad de Concepción will establish a Community of Practice (CoP) to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation among women in the cleantech sector in Chile and examine its effectiveness. The program aims to impact around 350 women in cleantech and build the CoP around 200 professionals at the national level. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, the team will analyze the CoP’s impact on participants’ entrepreneurial skills, business performance, and network strength. The research will also provide a blueprint of best practices that influenced the CoP in Chile, which could be tailored to fit the needs of entrepreneurial ecosystems elsewhere.
Indalo Inclusive South Africa NPC & The Broker’s primary research question explores how gender responsive practices implemented by entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) impact participation and outcomes for female entrepreneurs in the clean energy sector in South Africa. The research is set to focus specifically on entrepreneurs involved in photovoltaic (solar) energy.
Primarily using a qualitative research approach through case studies, interviews, surveys and an in-depth review of existing literature, the study aims to produce an actionable toolkit for ESOs in Africa and beyond to integrate a gender-lens in their support model.
The Caribshare Company Limited & Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología aim to address the issue of limited financing and networking opportunities for female clean energy entrepreneurs in the Caribbean. Focusing specifically on Jamaica, the study will explore the feasibility of a cooperative to support female renewable energy entrepreneurs. Renewable energy cooperatives (RECs) allow people to participate in local-scale energy generation instead of being ‘end-of-wire’ recipients of a centralized energy system. While this bottom-up approach has been applied in more industrialized economies, such programs are rare in developing economies, let alone in a gender-inclusive manner. Through its qualitative methodology, the study stands out by filling the stark lack of research surrounding renewable energy entrepreneurship in the Caribbean, offering important insights to practitioners and entrepreneurs alike.
Studies to support women employees:
A single study that ANDE funded aims to increase female participation in the clean energy workforce.
National Association for Women’s Action in Development (NAWAD) & Makerere University aim to increase women’s employment in Uganda’s briquette industry which currently remains a highly male-dominated sector. Researchers will examine the impact of providing more efficient and gender inclusive briquette machines to increase female participation in this industry while also exploring more sustainable inputs in production. With a higher energy conversion rate than charcoal, briquets could be a staple source of cooking fuel in Uganda. This study will explore how the implementation of more efficient technology and infrastructure may impact female participation in the clean-energy workforce.
Studies to support women consumers:
Two studies examine the impact of disseminating sustainable energy sources, specifically solar in rural and semi-urban communities, on women. Researchers will attempt to fill evidence gaps in how energy independence in rural communities contributes to better socio-economic outcomes for women.
Unreasonable Institute Mexico & Bitacora Social will segue from the typical economic and sociological research methods and investigate women’s decision making processes in Mexico’s energy transition through an anthropological lens. Using qualitative methods, the study will analyze in what ways women’s social roles could alter as a result of energy transition and how they navigate the changes in their responsibilities and expectations. This research will help policy makers better understand the social implications of energy transition in the socio-economic and cultural standing of women in the society.
Solar Sister & 60 Decibels will explore the spillover effects of sustainable solar energy adaptation on women in rural Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kenya. The study will also explore how Solar Sister’s social network and training model impact the livelihood of women entrepreneurs in terms of their decision-making, and finances, and how the training equips women with transferable skills that could be applied to make a meaningful impact on other areas of their life. Contingent on their findings regarding the program’s effectiveness, the researchers aim to scale their model in order to serve more communities while the insights from this study can help other programs replicate this model in other localities.
Women’s empowerment and the clean energy transition have a symbiotic relationship. Sustainable energy reduces household responsibilities, making them safer and more efficient, which, in turn, enables women to pursue employment, entrepreneurship, or educational opportunities. At the same time, women are key to expanding clean energy access, particularly in remote areas, where community knowledge, relatability, and approachability to other women makes them effective salespeople, technicians and entrepreneurs. Yet women remain underrepresented in the sector, facing significant barriers. Boosting female participation can help break these barriers and position women as leaders in an industry that has profound impacts on gender equality.
To keep up with the latest updates on this initiative, please visit the project page.
About 2X Global’s Initiative
As a key partner in this project, 2X Global’s research initiative focuses on addressing key challenges related to access to finance and the innovative solutions advanced by local gender-smart fund managers. These fund managers, based in emerging economies, are leading the way in creating innovative financing solutions for gender- and climate-smart entrepreneurs tailored to local contexts. 2X Global will conduct action research in the form of deep-dive case studies of local fund managers across Asia-Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America & the Caribbean. This research will contribute to the development of a gender- and climate-smart impact management and measurement (IMM) system, generating new insights that will help shape and advance the field of gender lens investing. The impact will be further amplified through shared learning and knowledge exchange events that involve a diverse range of stakeholders.
To support this initiative, 2X Global has partnered with three regional research leads: MSC Consulting for the Asia-Pacific region, Bodmando Consulting for Sub-Saharan Africa, and SAEDI Consulting for Latin America and the Caribbean. Together, we are in the process of selecting fund managers, who will be engaged in the creation of deep-dive case studies and the ongoing development and refinement of IMM practices.
Additionally, as part of this project, 2X Global will collect both quantitative and qualitative data on fund managers from the broader ecosystem to better understand the landscape of emerging gender- and climate-smart fund managers across emerging market regions. The Market Mapping Survey is currently live and aims to inform the broader landscape of fund managers investing at the intersection of climate and gender.