REPORT: read here
The National Agency of Natural Resources (AKBN) of Albania, the Department for Energy Efficiency of the State Standardization Committee of the Republic of Belarus, and the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving (SAEE) of Ukraine have requested the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to conduct a study on the topic of the Energy transition and post-COVID-19 socioeconomic recovery, with a focus on the role of women and impact on them. This report focuses on this aspect of the energy transition and post-COVID-19 socioeconomic recovery.
Gender disparities in the energy sector have been observed around the world. Women are less represented in policymaking, corporate leadership and governance, as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and in the labour workforce. Indeed, as it relates to employment, the energy sector is the least gender diverse. Studies have identified several possible reasons why women tend not to participate in the energy sector. These include women’s own perceptions of the industry, insufficient access to information, finance, and training, corporate human resources practices, and cultural biases and norms about gender roles. These barriers are surmountable using a two-way complementary approach, which is simultaneously bottom-up - action by women and society to bridge the gap of gender inequality in the energy sector – and top-down – government and policymakers need to develop policy tools to encourage women’s participation in the energy sector. The study presents priority actions that countries and companies can take to encourage the participation of women in the energy sector to drive a sustainable socioeconomic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.