Powering Change: Women, Youth, and the Clean Energy Revolution

This blog post summarizes key discussions from the UNCSW69 panel event “Powering Change: Women, Youth, and the Clean Energy Revolution” held on March 13, 2025.

On March 13th at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) we hosted an event titled “Powering Change: Women, Youth, and the Clean Energy Revolution.” The event brought together experts from various regions to address a critical challenge of our time: ensuring that women and youth are not left behind in the global transition to clean energy.

Why This Matters

The clean energy transition represents one of the most significant economic and environmental shifts of our generation. However, we currently face a paradoxical situation of “jobs without people, people without jobs”. While employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in the clean energy sector are growing rapidly everywhere in the world, so are skill and talent shortages, mostly because working in the clean energy sector requires specific skills, training, and access to finance. Since women and youth are more likely to struggle in accessing these requirements, they are often unable to secure work in clean energy even in contexts such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where they experience very high levels of unemployment. Despite the burgeoning opportunities in renewable energy sectors, women and youth—particularly in developing regions—continue to face disproportionate barriers to participation.

The numbers tell a compelling story. For instance, in some rural areas of Senegal, 43% of homes still lack access to electricity. Meanwhile, female labour force participation in the MENA region remains the lowest worldwide, despite the region’s abundant renewable energy resources. This disconnect represents not just a social inequity, but a missed economic opportunity on a massive scale.

Key Insights from the Panel

The panel wove together perspectives from diverse geographic contexts, creating a rich tapestry of insights that transcended regional boundaries while acknowledging unique local challenges.

Evidence from Kenya paints a compelling picture of the transformative potential in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy delivers not just environmental benefits but opens economic doorways. Renewable energy creates cascading opportunities through entrepreneurship and jobs across entire deployment value chains, emphasizing that successful transition requires holistic capacity building at all levels, from individual skills development to supportive policies and institutions.

The MENA region poses a fascinating paradox: a region historically dependent on fossil fuels now increasingly vulnerable to climate change impacts yet simultaneously blessed with abundant renewable resources. Despite this potential, women’s participation remains strikingly low. Cultural expectations around care work, limited access to STEM education, and financial barriers create interlocking challenges that must be addressed systemically rather than piecemeal.

Senegal has an ambitious plan to increase renewable energy share to 40% by 2030, but women in rural communities face daily challenges as they navigate the impossible choice between unpaid care work and income-generating activities. Senegal’s three-pronged approach—addressing customer demand, supplier capacity, and microfinance institutions—offers a practical framework for comprehensive intervention.

What emerged across all three perspectives was the critical importance of context-specific approaches that recognize the diversity of women’s and youth’s experiences while addressing common structural barriers.

Systemic Barriers

The panel identified several key barriers that disproportionately affect women and youth in the clean energy sector:

1. Limited Access to Finance: As Ann emphasized, based on evidence from Kenya, traditional financing models often fail to consider the specific needs of women and youth entrepreneurs. The lack of collateral, high starting capital requirements, and exploitative business models (like expensive pay-as-you-go systems) create significant obstacles.
2. Education and Skills Gap: The persistent underrepresentation of women and girls in Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers was highlighted by Hala as a fundamental barrier, particularly in the MENA region.
3. Cultural and Social Norms: Gendered perceptions of appropriate roles within the energy value chain limit opportunities. As Ann pointed out based on evidence from Kenya, manufacturing and design jobs are often perceived as “men’s work,” while women are relegated to sales and marketing roles.
4. Infrastructural Challenges: Michele, drawing on evidence from Senegal noted that lack of access to resources, high costs of renewable technologies, and inadequate infrastructure create additional barriers for adoption, particularly in rural communities.

Solutions and Strategies

The panel offered several promising approaches to increase women and youth participation in the clean energy transition:

Capacity Building and Skills Development

All panellists emphasized the critical importance of tailored training programs such as holistic skills development that addresses both technical capabilities and business acumen; gender-sensitive STEM education and mentorship programs and financial literacy and entrepreneurial management training. Michele described an innovative capacity-building program in Senegal co-developed specifically for women and youth entrepreneurs. The program includes financial literacy education, entrepreneurial management training, and technical knowledge of renewable energy technologies.

Policy and Institutional Support

Effective policies and institutional frameworks are essential enablers and should include removal of regulatory, financial, and bureaucratic barriers; implementation of gender-sensitive policies that recognize and address women’s unique challenges; participatory approaches that involve all ecosystem actors in conversations and decision-making and evidence-based policy development that avoids generalization and addresses specific needs.

Financing Solutions

Innovative financing models are crucial to overcome traditional barriers. Programs to increase women’s and youth’s access to financing solutions are needed. It is essential to map existing financial mechanisms and identifying gaps and create partnerships with microfinance institutions to provide products and services tailored for renewable energies.

Audience Engagement

The Q&A sessions revealed that these issues resonate globally, with participants from countries as diverse as Nigeria, India, and Jordan sharing similar experiences.

One particularly thought-provoking question addressed the trade-offs of increasing women in the workforce, particularly concerning care responsibilities. This highlighted the need for holistic approaches that consider the full spectrum of women’s roles and responsibilities.

Other questions focused on practical concerns:

• How to optimize opportunities for women to access finances for business startups
• The role of government policy in addressing high youth unemployment and inconsistent regulations
• Strategies for ensuring the sustainability of MSMEs in green energy
• Best practices for engaging young women who face time constraints due to family commitments

Future Directions

The panel concluded with forward-looking recommendations:

1. Evidence-Based Approaches: Solutions must be developed based on rigorous evidence rather than assumptions about women’s and youth’s needs and capabilities.
2. Collaborative Ecosystem: Governments, private sector, academia, and civil society must work together to create enabling environments for inclusive participation.
3. Value Chain Approach: Different segments of the renewable energy deployment value chain (e.g. manufacturing, servicing, selling etc) offer varied opportunities for women and youth. Solar technologies have engaged more young people in installation and servicing, while clean cooking technologies have created business opportunities for women.
4. Innovation and Digitalization: Digital technologies have the potential to strengthen green entrepreneurship and overcome traditional barriers.
5. Demonstrating Economic Benefits: The clean energy transition can create three times more jobs than the fossil fuel industry, with estimates suggesting that by 2030, while 5 million jobs in fossil fuel production may be lost, approximately 14 million new jobs will be created in green energy.

Moving Forward with Hope

The clean energy revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity to address multiple global challenges simultaneously: climate change, energy access, gender equality, and youth unemployment. By placing women and youth at the centre of renewable energy strategies, we can create more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous societies.

As Michele eloquently stated in her closing remarks, “by focusing on the demand side, supply side, and microfinance institutions, we can create a more inclusive energy ecosystem with capacity-building programs empowering women and youth to actively participate in the energy transition.”

The path forward requires commitment, innovation, and collaboration across sectors and borders. But as this panel demonstrated, the vision of an inclusive clean energy future is not only necessary—it’s achievable. By supporting women and youth with the right resources, skills, and policies, we can power change that benefits everyone.