Founded in 1995 by a group of committed women who provided energy inputs to the Beijing Conference on Women, ENERGIA was to act against the inadequate recognition of gender issues as a legitimate area of concern in energy policy and practice at that time.

ENERGIA started activities in 1996 with an immediate objective to increase the visibility of, and activities on women and energy in mainstream energy organisations. Over the years, ENERGIA has built up credibility for its expertise and quality of work as the only international network dealing with gender and energy issues. From national governments and projects to international institutions, ENERGIA is widely recognised as a strategic partner in their gender and energy activities.

From when activities started in 1996 until the end of the previous funding phase December 2006, ENERGIA has been working following these main strategies:

Policy influencing to mainstream gender in energy policies

International Advocacy

Mainly high-level international events were targeted, with success. ENERGIA's approach and contribution to these events have been lauded and have led to the inclusion of gender in major outcome texts. Examples of events targeted by ENERGIA are: the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002, the International Conference for Renewable Energies in Bonn in 2004, and the energy sessions of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD9 and CSD14 and 15).

ENERGIA was also successful in putting gender and energy issues on the agendas of multilateral and bilateral development stakeholders in the energy sector, including the World Bank, UNDP, Sida (Sweden), DGIS (Netherlands), DfID (UK), Danida (Denmark) and GTZ (Germany), GVEP and international renewable energy organisations. Not only does ENERGIA ensure that gender and energy remains on the agenda, but the network also feeds the discussions at the international level with ‘on the ground’ experience from gender and energy project and policy cases.

Policy Influencing at National Level: Gender Audits

Capacity Building

One of the principal barriers for ENERGIA has been the lack of gender and energy expertise at all levels, capable of providing assistance on gender integration and mainstreaming into policies and projects. As the development objective of ENERGIA is to have a positive impact on women's livelihoods in developing countries, the lack of local capacity is most critical. Capacity building on mainstreaming gender issues in energy policies and projects through training workshops at national level has thus been central to ENERGIA’s work almost from the beginning. These training workshops have targeted a range of professionals, including energy practitioners, gender experts, policy-makers, and academics.

The development of training material for energy practitioners and policy makers has also been key to ENERGIA and has been closely linked to the training workshops at national level that were held. It was not until the TIE-ENERGIA programme (2005-2007), that ENERGIA developed the most comprehensive training programme on gender and energy so far in sub-Saharan Africa. Training materials were developed –based partly on training material developed before-, training of trainers workshops were given at sub-regional level, and energy experts at both the policy and implementation levels were trained in gender mainsteaming in energy policies and projects in 12 African countries. More…

Research and Analysis

Throughout the years, ENERGIA has supported the development and publication of case studies on gender issues in energy projects and policies. These case studies were mainly published through the newsletter ENERGIA News, and the ENERGIA website. At times case studies were developed especially for targeted activities, mostly for international advocacy, to establish the much needed link between practice and policy.

Groundbreaking research was done under a project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID) 'Gender as a key variable in energy interventions: are we asking the right questions?'. The research was carried out between 2004 and 2006 and brought together some of the world's foremost experts on gender and energy in a Collaborative Research Group on Gender and Energy (CRGGE). The challenge was to move towards a framework for gender and energy policy research in the 21st century, to build capacity in our own institutions and networks, and to influence the international energy policy research agenda as well as practice. More…

Strengthen the ENERGIA Network

ENERGIA has grown into a network consisting of national gender and energy networks in 13 countries in Africa and 9 countries in Asia. To build strong Southern ownership of the network ENERGIA has supported decentralisation of the network through the creation of two regional, Southern networks in Africa and Asia. The ENERGIA-Africa Network was established through a regional consultative process in 2000, while the ENERGIA-Asia Network was established in 2001, also through consultations. The regional ENERGIA networks have developed into active and vibrant networks, headed by a Regional Network Coordinator (RNC), who facilitate the process of needs assessment at the national and regional levels, and translate these into concrete network activities. More…

Through yearly seed funding, ENERGIA supports the strenthening of national gender and energy networks that are member of ENERGIA.

Information Management and Development of Knowledge Resources

Latest developments in gender and energy are shared with a wide audience through ENERGIA News, the website, listserves, and an electronic newsletter. Various knowledge resources have been developed over the years, including an online database of gender and energy publications, and annotated bibliographies of available publications on gender and energy. Together with UNDP, ENERGIA produced the 'Gender & energy for sustainable development: a toolkit and resource guide'. More…

To be able to do all this crucial work on gender and energy, ENERGIA received core funding from DGIS (the Netherlands Directorate General of International Cooperation) and Sida (Swedish International Development Agency). Extra funding was received from the EU Facility Intelligent Energy Europe for TIE-ENERGIA and from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) for the research 'Gender as a key variable in energy interventions: are we asking the right questions?'.