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Let’s do a quick thought experiment. Imagine you’re attending the opening ceremony of a major energy conference. The packed auditorium is buzzing with an audience made up of the most influential energy stakeholders from across the globe: government officials, scientists, heads of business, policymakers and so on. Then, all of a sudden, the huge room falls to a hush. The big moment has arrived. One of the world’s most respected energy figures is taking to the podium to deliver the critical opening speech.
Now, in all honesty, what do you automatically picture that person making the speech looking like? Or more precisely, what is their gender?
Whether we like to admit it or not, the sad reality is that the vast majority of people would have straightaway pictured a man standing up on that hypothetical stage.
Even worse, many would have probably also envisaged most of those influential energy stakeholders to also be male.
So, where is all of this going? The point of this exercise is to make clear that gender bias remains an unfortunate reality in the energy sector. Indeed, harmful gender stereotypes are an unfortunate phenomenon of a space where, to this very day, women remain substantially underrepresented. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that women make up roughly a third of the renewable energy workforce1. Meanwhile, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), female energy professionals account for a mere fifth of the sector’s global labour force2.
This situation creates a vicious circle. The stark gender energy gap reinforces harmful stereotypes, which then can deter women from entering this sector3. This should concern all of us — and this is not least due to the moral and ethical arguments, or the painful evidence indicating that girls and women will be the most affected by climate change4. If our world truly wants to shift to a sustainable energy system, there will be a colossal surge in demand for renewable energy workers. In fact, according to research by IRENA, achieving an energy transition would require the global renewable energy workforce — estimated in 2024 as 16.6 million jobs — to leap to 30 million by 2030 and nearly 40 million by 20505. We cannot depend on male professionals alone to fill the gap.
In the face of this, there is one burning question: how can we encourage more girls and women to work in energy, if they cannot see themselves as potential energy leaders?
One approach is to tackle the situation head on. Raise awareness. Actively fight against harmful gender stereotypes. Highlight female role models. This is the objective of a new communications campaign, African Power Girls Rising. Led by The Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) and the SADC Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (SACREEE), the campaign sets out to inspire girls and young women aged 14 to 24 across fourteen countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to consider careers in the sustainable energy sector.
By sharing content on TiKToK, Facebook, newsletter and a dedicated website, African Power Girls Rising provides practical resources on career pathways, showcases the real-life stories of women working across the energy transition, as well as offers guidance to parents and teachers on how they can best support. The campaign also sets out to dispel myths on energy jobs which may be discouraging girls and women from the sector. For example, not all work is necessarily related to STEM or engineering, but there are diverse, vibrant opportunities for people with different skills and interests.
African Power Girls Rising was officially launched in February 2026 during the SADC Sustainable Energy Week Conference in VictoriaFalls, Zimbabwe, at a dedicated side event featuring keynote speakers H.E.Romana Königsbrun, Austrian Ambassador to nine SADC countries; Hon. Yeukai Simbanegavi, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development; and Hon. Senator Monica Mutsvangwa, Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development. The campaign is part of the project Energising Women to Advance the Energy Transition in the SADC Region, an initiative run by the GWNET and the SACREEE to empower women in the energy transition across the SADC region, with financial support from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of International Partnerships Austria.
As the energy transition accelerates, granting equal access to opportunities is of paramount importance, not only for gender equality, but also for ensuring an inclusive and sustainable future. Communications campaigns like African Power Girls Rising can play a decisive factor by presenting girls and women a new lens to view not only the energy sector, but also their own potential. It is high time we show women and girls worldwide that they not only belong in the energy sphere, but they can rise as energy leaders at the forefront, making the key decisions, delivering those critical speeches and driving the energy transition forward.
1 International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Renewable energy:A gender perspective, Second edition, International Renewable EnergyAgency, Abu Dhabi, 2025. Available at:https://www.irena.org/Publications/2025/Oct/Renewable‑Energy‑A‑Gender‑Perspective(Accessed: 26 March 2026).
2 International Energy Agency (IEA), Energy and gender, IEA.Available at: https://www.iea.org/topics/energy-and-gender (Accessed: 26March 2026).
3 J. Clancy and M. Feenstra (2019) Women, gender equality and the energy transition in the EU, Brussels: European Parliament, p. 20.
4 UN Women (2025) Explainer: How gender inequality and climate change are interconnected, 21 April. Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/explainer/how-gender-inequality-and-climate-change-are-interconnected(Accessed: 26 March 2026).
5 International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Renewable energy:A gender perspective, 2nd edn, Abu Dhabi, 2025, p. 22.