This episode features Valentina Guido Bergamo, Senior Associate at RMI; Thokozani Kadzamira, Gender and Infrastructure Specialist at the World Bank; Joëlle Matte, Gender and Climate Expert at the UNDP; Sauda Bobboi, Gender Integration Coordinator for the Africa Minigrids Program (AMP) at Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA); and Mino Rakotobe, AMP Project Lead in Madagascar, alongside host Olubunmi (“Olu”) Olajide. Together, they explore what it truly takes to deliver gender-responsive clean energy at the community level—bridging high-level institutional frameworks with the practical realities of last-mile execution.
Valentina opens the conversation by reflecting on momentum from the EAIF 2026 Women in Clean Energy initiative and RMI’s Global Women in Clean Energy Fellowship, emphasizing that embedding gender inclusion across distributed energy projects serves as a proven multiplier for climate resilience and financial performance. Thoko then establishes the institutional framing, analyzing how international policy, infrastructure planning, and gender-responsive design principles can be structured to convert global capital into meaningful, equitable community access.
Shifting to ground-level implementation, Sauda and Mino detail how mini-grids function when capital reaches the field. Sauda outlines AMP Nigeria’s rollout of 23 mini-grids linked directly to agricultural productive uses like rice milling and cassava processing, while Mino shares insights from Madagascar’s PAYGO solar kiosks and local female technician training. Addressing systemic bottlenecks, the panel examines why procurement incentives for female-led businesses still face market hurdles, concluding that long-term sustainability requires unlearning theoretical project assumptions and embedding local technical capacity directly within host communities.
Additionally, UNDP/Africa Minigrids Program Gender and Climate Expert Joëlle M. provided key insights on differences in men and women's approaches to income-generating activities. Highlighting a joint initiative by the University of Strathclyde, Kumo Microfinance, and Self Help Africa, she noted that women often monetize unpaid care work like baking when launching businesses, whereas men pursue traditionally paid roles—a distinction that helps organizations better tailor project design and anticipate electricity usage. Further, to address common challenges in evaluating effectiveness, Joëlle introduced time tracking as an impact metric, measuring shifts in women's schedules (such as expanded leisure or reduced burden) before and after gaining reliable power to assess true empowerment.
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