Mar 03, 2022
The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) hope to create a model for female climate leadership with recently greenlit projects in Haiti and the Maldives.
Both countries are benefitting from investment programs that seek to take on the structural and cultural barriers to equal participation in climate governance and green growth.
Why now?
The United Nations acknowledges that women are more vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change. They are more likely to be dependent on the most threatened natural resources and have less access to land, credit, decision-making structures, technology, and training to enhance their capacity for climate change adaptation.
How is CIF effecting change?
The initiatives in Haiti and the Maldives are part of the CIF Gender Action Plan (GAP), launched in 2014, and now in its third phase. The plan seeks to systematically integrate gender equality into all program design and investment criteria; to increase capacity for inclusive design and move towards measurable impacts.
CASE STUDIES: The Maldives get POISED for climate action
The ‘Preparing Outer Island Sustainable Electricity Development Project’ (POISED) is designed to shift the Maldives towards energy self-sufficiency, minimizing emissions, reducing the cost of energy and reliance on imported fossil fuels – the government once had to spend USD555M to import 667,000 metric tons of diesel. The Project is replacing inefficient fossil fuel power grids with renewable energy hybrid systems – no mean feat in a country consisting of 1,192 islands of which 187 are inhabited.
Getting everyone involved is crucial…
POISED will promote women’s employment and training during project construction and ongoing operations, simultaneously enabling women in decision making roles to actively participate.
Improved gender balance will be achieved through broad ranging initiatives and targets including:
- Enabling a conducive environment for women’s microenterprise development, a sector identified by the government as important for economic growth, by reducing energy tariffs for female led enterprises
- Quotas ensuring women occupy 25% of the places in the training provided to the Maldives main energy suppliers (Fenaka and STELCO); both are tasked to implement the roll-out of renewable energy systems
- The campaign to raise awareness of renewable energy and household demand side management is designed to be gender inclusive and aims to achieve 50% female participation, targeting female household consumers and the many Women’s Development Committees that exist on the islands
Meanwhile in Haiti…
Haiti is taking a strong stance on climate resilience and renewable energy solutions. CIF is supporting the country’s climate ambitions with several programs tailored to their most pressing issues: poverty, weak infrastructure, extreme weather, and limited access to electricity.
CIF’s Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program in Low Income Countries (SREP) in Haiti aims to set the country on a path to transform its energy sector from an underdeveloped, unreliable, and expensive fossil fuel-based power generation mix to a modern and sustainable energy system relying on diverse sources of power. The SREP Haiti program includes the Renewable Energy and Access for All project (USD13.62M) from SREP and Modern Energy and Service for All project (USD15.65M) from the Clean Technology Fund.
These complementary projects combine to scale-up renewable energy investments in the Caribbean-island nation; to expand and improve access to clean electricity and accelerate private-sector-driven, renewable energy off-grid electrification in Haiti. CIF believes that this will promote equality and women's empowerment, improving health and education for women and girls and provide them with new employment opportunities. Closing the gender gap acknowledged to exist in female employment in the off-grid electricity sector is critical to success; common to both programs are actions aimed at attracting women e.g., gender-sensitive job announcements and application processes.
Metrics for success include the number of women benefitting from improved access to clean electricity: The Renewable Energy and Access for All program will achieve 205,000 female beneficiaries while creating a similar number of female jobs or female led new enterprises. The Modern Energy and Service for All program will provide electricity access to 250,000 women.
Conclusions
CIF acknowledges that the urgent conversation around our climate crisis must include all voices; that our climate adaptation and resilience goals cannot be accomplished without attending to the link between gender and climate. Our Gender Action Plan was set in motion to advance equal access to all CIF investments. Our programs in Haiti and the Maldives will join many others in levelling up the gender balance, not just in Renewable Energy, but across all CIF portfolio products.
