Branislava Jovičić, project manager at WISE, has presented the results so far under the Women in Sustainable Energy project at the international workshop titled Knowledge Building on Women in Clean Energy. The WISE project was presented as an example of best practices in the collection of data on women’s representation in the sustainable energy sector. The workshop in Rome was organized by the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) in cooperation with the C3E-TCP initiative and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Speaking at the session titled Tools and methods to assess women workforce in clean energy at country level, Branislava presented the WISE project methodology and the results of research carried out among women professionally engaged in the sustainable energy, climate change, and environmental protection sectors, as well as among women in the general population. Branislava noted that gender equality in project management should go beyond gender parity, which has often been observed in practice, and that strengthening the role of women and their representation should be sought through concrete support programs and increasing the visibility of women. Creating women’s networks such as the WISE expert network, which was established as a result of the project, is a good example and a useful tool to secure the sustainability of the initiative.

“The success we achieved in Serbia and knowledge gained from the project will be used to develop concrete programs for women in sustainable energy, as well as to replicate the project in other countries in the region and the countries that invite us to help them,” Branislava said at the gathering, which served as an experience-sharing platform for representatives of governments, international organizations, privately held companies, and educational and research institutions from the entire world dealing with the issue of gender equality in the energy sector.

Canada, Sweden & Italy lead the way in strengthening the role of women in clean energy

Knowledge building on the importance of gender diversity represents the key starting point in the decision-making process. The data currently available on women’s representation in the clean energy sector is limited, while the awareness of the importance of gender parity is at a very low level. The Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Technology Collaborative Program (C3E-TCP) was established in June 2017 under the leadership of Canada, Italy, and Sweden, with the aim to strengthen the role of women in the clean energy sector, which remains one of the most gender imbalanced sectors.

C3E-TCP will continue collecting information on women’s participation in the clean energy sector and developing indicators to measure progress.