In August, the Low Carbon Energy for Development Network and  Smart Villages held a successful webinar focusing on women and entrepreneurship in off-grid communities, with views from Solar Sister, Ajima Farms Ltd, Power4All, and Kopernik. (http://e4sv.org/events/women-energy-entrepreneurship-business-models-off-grid-energy-social-impact-part-ii/)

In the current webinar, we will hear from off-grid companies, including Frontier Markets, PEG Ghana, among others, on how they have scaled up inclusiveness and integrated gender into their overall business: supply chains, production, marketing, and beyond.

How can existing successful approaches to gender and women’s empowerment be scaled up? How can the private sector be encouraged to adopt such approaches? And how can gender be “mainstreamed” within a business?

Each expert will speak for approximately 10 minutes, leaving time for questions at the end, and will focus on their on-the-ground experience using photos to tell their story.

The Low Carbon Energy for Development Network (LCEDN) brings together researchers, policy-makers and practitioners from across the United Kingdom to expand research capacity around low-carbon development in the countries of the Global South.

It links existing expertise in international development, renewable energy transitions and science and technology studies in order to enhance and support interdisciplinary research, learning and policy-formation for this increasingly important and rapidly changing field.

The LCEDN comprises internationally-renowned universities and thriving energy research institutes, alongside partnerships with the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and expanding worldwide associations. This enables a unique environment for dialogue, discussion and the generation of ideas for funding.

About Smart Villages

The Smart Villages Initiative is a global initiative that aims to provide policymakers, donors, and development agencies concerned with rural energy access across the Global South with new insights on the real barriers to energy access in villages in developing countries – technological, financial and political – and how they can be overcome. We are have chosen to focus on remote off-grid villages, where local solutions (home- or institution-based systems, and mini-grids) are both more realistic and cheaper than national grid extension. Our concern is to ensure that energy access results in development and the creation of ‘smart villages’ in which rural communities have access to healthcare, education, clean water, ICT, and livelihoods. See our recent publications and workshop reports here: http://e4sv.org/resources/