Gender Implications for Energy Infrastructure

This webinar aims to deepen understanding of the social and gender considerations that surround the implementation of large-scale electricity and energy infrastructure projects, as well as to highlight good practices in the sector. 

Panelists will explore the diversity of opportunities to include gender throughout the planning, design, implementation and meaningful corporate policies of large-scale energy infrastructure projects, programs and businesses across hydro projects, concentrated solar programs, geothermal plants and distribution projects from around the world.
 
The webinar will be moderated by Ana Rojas, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Global Gender Office (IUCN GGO), and will include presentations from the following speakers:

• Vanessa Lopes Janik, Social, Gender and Energy Specialist, Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and Maria Beatriz Orlando, Senior Social Development Specialist, World Bank. Presentation: Gender and electricity infrastructure: Impacts and opportunities. In their presentation, Vanessa and Maria Beatriz will present the findings of the ESMAP and the World Bank report on "Getting to Gender Equality in Energy Infrastructure". In presenting these findings, they will introduce how gender issues in the areas of land or labor can be considered within energy generation, transmission and distribution programs. Case studies will highlight a hydro project in Nepal, concentrated solar program in Morocco and distribution project in Senegal.
• Alaide González, Renewable energy consultant, Energia y Ambiente. Presentation: Gender responsive geothermal generation —harvesting energy and social benefits in El Salvador. In her presentation, Alaide from LaGeo will present on LaGeo’s gender-responsive corporate philosophy, in both its corporate space and in community outreach. The presentation will highlight the myriad of actions LaGeo undertakes —from improving HR policies, to capitalizing on byproducts of geothermal generation and to improving communities’ resilience by investing in environment, education and health services.  

Speaker bios:

• Vanessa Lopes Janik joined the World Bank Group in December 2006 and is currently an Operations Officer for the World Bank’s Energy Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) working at the global level across Energy, Gender, and Climate Change issues. She is jointly leading programs on gender and social issues within the energy sector both globally and within the Africa region.
•  Maria Beatriz Orlando is a development economist working on social inclusion at the World Bank’s Global Practice on Social, Urban, Rural, and Resilience Programs. She is currently Program Manager of the Poverty and Social Impact Analysis Trust Fund, which focuses on the poverty and social impacts of policy reform. Her research and operational work focuses on gender issues, labor markets, poverty, and exclusion due to ethnicity. She has worked extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean.
•  Alaide González is a Guatemalan energy expert with a wide experience in the development of renewable energy projects, Clean Development Mechanism and sustainable development. In the past two decades, she has been involved in all levels of the electricity supply chain, including resource identification, management of environmental and social aspects, business plan development and electricity commercialization. Since 2007, she has advised LaGeo, S.A. in the management of GHG mitigation activities and is recipient of the Momentum for Change 2015 Award in the category Women for Results by the project “Harvesting Geothermal Energy” awarded during COP21, in Paris. Alaide is also the Director of Energia y Ambiente, a consulting firm based in Guatemala.