USAID's Climate Strategy in Action: Empowering Women Leads to Sustainable Power
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This blog is part of the USAID’s Climate Strategy in Action series. It expands on a winning photo from the 2023 Climatelinks Photo Contest to highlight how USAID is confronting climate change across sectors.
Companies with inclusive workplace policies and cultures report greater innovation, creativity, and openness. As Kenya moves towards more resilient energy systems, gender equality may be key to unlocking potential in the country's renewable energy transition.
USAID’s Engendering Industries enhances gender equality in both public and private sector companies by using a comprehensive and customized approach that combines training, evidence-based best practices, and the support of a dedicated change management coach. The program has helped partner organizations hire and promote nearly 13,000 women, with 70 percent of participating companies now promoting women at or above the rate at which they promote men.
Seventy five percent of partners report increased gender equality has improved their business performance, including increased innovation.
Engendering Industries' efforts support USAID's 2022-2030 Climate Strategy targets of reducing emissions and helping countries reach their mitigation goals.
Almost 90 percent of Engendering Industries’ partners work in the renewable energy sector. One of those companies is Kenya Electricity Generation Company (KenGen). As the largest electricity generator in Kenya, KenGen is working to double its generation capacity by expanding its wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal portfolio to meet the national target of 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The company partnered with Engendering Industries in 2020 to develop a strategic approach to reach those targets by improving equality within the organization.
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Engendering Industries conducted a baseline assessment, comparing KenGen’s corporate practices to the program’s Best Practices Framework. The company had few women in technical fields and leadership roles, so Engendering Industries helped KenGen implement gender equality best practices focused on talent acquisition and leadership development. In 2022, the program provided a grant for KenGen to launch a digital mentorship program and scale leadership development across the company. KenGen overhauled outreach, recruitment, and onboarding procedures to make the company more equitable, and used succession planning and the mentorship program to identify and promote women into leadership roles.
“We’ve created an army of great women and that will change their lives, change the lives of others, and change the fortunes of the company,” said Acting Managing Director Abraham Serem during the mentorship platform launch.
Between 2020 and 2023, KenGen increased the proportion of women on staff from 23 to 27 percent. Each year, the company also provided leadership training to a quarter of its female employees, helping many attain new management positions.
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Increasing inclusion and equality across the company has spurred innovation. For example, at the company’s largest wind farm, Kaarinah Luvango was promoted to Senior Electrical Engineer—making her the first woman to hold this position—after participating in the company’s mentorship program. Empowered in her new role, Kaarinah developed a new transformer that uses local parts rather than expensive imports, reducing costs and making maintenance quicker and easier. She also improved management practices by assigning ownership of every turbine to senior leaders and wind farm staff members. These technological and cultural innovations resulted in the turbines operating above 99 percent capacity for the first time in more than three years.
“After the mentorship program, I am in a different place in terms of confidence and competence,” Luvango said. “Sustainable energy is the next frontier, and we are mentoring the next generation.”
Alec Jacobson
Alec Jacobson is a Communications and Learning Specialist with USAID’s Engendering Industries Program.
