Advancing Energy (SDG7) and Gender Equality (SDG5)

 

 

Women and female-headed households lag behind in accessing electricity at home, through community services and in their businesses. Globally, 2.9 billion people lack access to clean cooking, disproportionately affecting women’s health, wellbeing and economic welfare. Women are alarmingly underrepresented in the energy sector at large. Despite the challenges, women are agents of transformational change. They play key roles in delivering sustainable energy solutions to last-mile communities where commercial distributors fail to operate, and make up one third of the workforce in the renewable energy sector. 

The event will highlight and discuss key messages from the policy brief "Advancing Energy (SDG 7) and Gender Equality (SDG 5)” on SDG7 progress, and how to accelerate actions on gender and energy:

● Increase investments in energy services that directly meet poor women’s energy needs for cooking, health, education, water supply and lighting.

● Support women’s entrepreneurship in energy value chains and their productive uses of energy.

● Increase women’s participation, leadership, and agency in the energy sector.

● Increase opportunities for decent jobs and career advancement for women to fulfil their potentials and aspirations in the energy transition.

● Systematically collect, report and use disaggregated data and evidence to ensure accountability to commitments on women’s empowerment.

 

A keynote presentation setting the context and panel discussion featuring contributors to

the brief will be complemented by a dialogue with the audience to exchange views and

perspectives. The side event will call for strong political will, international cooperation, and

increased funding and investment for closing gender gaps in the energy sector.