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Advancing Women’s Participation in the Renewable Energy Transition

Advancing Women’s Participation in the Renewable Energy Transition

Advancing Women’s Participation in the Renewable Energy Transition | Side event at 47th session of Human Rights Council

 

On 14 July 2021, GI-ESCR organised a side-event with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and Oxfam Mexico on Women’s Participation in the Renewable Energy Transition at the 47th session of the Human Rights Council, with the additional collaboration of our partners EmpowerMed, AIDA and ProDESC. Bringing together experts, activists and practitioners working in the fields of energy, climate change, and women’s rights to share their experiences working with communities at grassroots level, this policy dialogue, sharing knowledge and mutual learning event helped bridge knowledge gaps and promote future visions for renewable energy.

The event aimed to share their experiences on the ground and foster mutual learning on gender-just energy transitions as well as strengthen the links between experts, activists and other practitioners to promote network building and policy development aiming to achieve gender equitable outcomes in energy interventions.

This policy dialogue, sharing knowledge and mutual learning event allowed UN experts members of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls in Law and in Practice and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to establish an engaging and rich dialogue with activists and civil society organisations advocating for a feminist and rights-based energy transition.

On the one hand, UN experts had the opportunity to deepen their understanding on the energy transition as a key human rights and gender equality issue, deriving analysis from experiences of women at the community level; on the other hand, the representatives of civil society organisations had the opportunity to learn more about how they can collaborate with international human rights mechanisms and mobilise around international human rights norms and instruments to advance key policy recommendations and persuade States to mainstream gender in their energy transition policies and frameworks.

The event also allowed to further unpack how we can use renewable energies to combat climate change and structural conditions of gender discrimination to keep building momentum, articulate join advocacy strategies and advance a feminist transition to low carbon societies.

KEY Speakers

Part I: Experiences on the ground

Moderator: Alexandra Haas, Executive Director Oxfam Mexico

  • Irene Giner-Reichl, Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition

  • Debajit Palit, Energy and Resource Institute

  • Lidija Živčič, EmpowerMed

  • Marina Dubois, Geres

Part II: Engagement with Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Mechanisms

Moderator: Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Executive Director of GI-ESCR and Former Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

  • Melissa Upreti, Member of the UN Working Group on the Discrimination Against Women

  • Dorothy Estrada-Tank, Member of the UN Working Group on the Discrimination Against Women

  • Heisoo Shin, Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Event summary

Magdalena Sepúlveda, Executive Director of GI-ESCR welcomed participants highlighting the importance of combating climate change with a huma rights-based approach. She mentioned that as the sector of the renewable energy is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years we need to ask fundamental questions, such as:

What are the risks and opportunities green energy presents for women and girls? How can we use the global energy transition to transform economies and societies so as they are more human rights and gender compliant?

Her intervention set the tone for an insightful and rich conversation amongst experts, activists and grassroots organisations working at the local and international level to transform energy systems to protect the environment, foster gender equality and the realization of human rights.

“It is fantastic to hear about good practices to advance gender-just transitions to low carbon economies, because that allows us to tell States how change looks like and how it can happen. It is clear that this is a human rights issue and that it is connected with several social movements related to food, labour, health and education, as well as the rights of specific groups and minorities.”

Melissa Upreti, expert member of the Working Group on Discrimination of Women and Girls in Law and in Practice.

All speakers agreed that the energy transition is a deep societal transformation which implies a lot more than a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The scale and scope of the energy transition is so significant that it touches many key aspects of everyday life.

Irene Giner-Reichl from the Global Women’s Network on the Energy Transition reflected that it is very positive for the society at large, the environment and to promote social development, if energy transitions can draw on all available talent, including that of women that are so far greatly underrepresented in the energy sector.

Debajit Palit, from TERI explained the multiplying benefits of ensuring women’s access to energy and to electric appliances in their households. The livelihoods of women were significantly improved by reducing the care and domestic work burdens that are mostly performed by women. Electric appliances, for instance, allow women to save time and reduce the drudgery of cooking and cleaning. It also allows for greater mobility, to have communication devices, and participate in decision-making. Dr. Palit highlighted that the new and emerging narratives on gender and energy clearly identifies the meaningful role women can play as ‘change agents’ along multiple segments of the energy value chain as energy users, business owners, service providers and policy makers.

Among participants and speakers there was a general consensus on the challenges faced in mainstreaming gender in energy policies. Participants highlighted the structural barriers that women face to participate in decision-making due to pervasive negative gender roles and stereotypes. One of them, is that some stakeholders see no need for the differentiation of men and women in energy policies and frameworks. We need more affirmative action to achieve more equitable outcomes for women.

Lidija Živčič from EmpowerMed explained that structural gender-related inequalities result in women and households led by women being disproportionately affected by domestic energy deprivation. In this light, EmpowerMed aims to empower women affected by energy poverty to trigger transformative change in domestic energy use practices and to replicate exemplary cases of gendered local energy poverty alleviation approaches. Lidija explained the diverse set of multidisciplinary strategies that the nine organisations members of the project have implemented at the community level to foster women’s participation in the solution of energy poverty. Building spaces for women according to their needs and considering their care roles to detonate the conversation and have peer to peer exchanges on the challenges they face has been a key feature of the programme.

“International Human Rights Law gives us different entry points through different human rights instruments to address these key issues. There is a whole set of norms, standards and principles that can direct us and provide guidance on how should a just transition to renewable energy and low carbon societies should look like. An intersectional approach to clearly understand how this transition impacts women across the lines of ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation is also essential to ensure we fully understand the implications of this global transition.”

Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, expert member of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls in Law and in Practice

In relation to combating gender stereotypes, Marina Dubois from Geres also highlighted that if we want technology to fit the needs of women and communities, we need to engage women in decision-making. Promoting and supporting women who can act as “role models” for others often inspire the women in certain communities to take part in decision-making spaces, also mobilising men and providing them with information on how families and the whole community could greatly benefit from women’s participation and engagement in these decision-making processes can have a very positive impact and improve women’s status in their communities.

“The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is in the process of developing a new General Comment on Sustainable Development, we invite organizations to contribute to this process and participate sending relevant information to ensure the key questions relevant to the energy transition and women’s rights are included to bridge the gaps in legal protection.”

Heisoo Shin, expert member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

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With the collaboration of the following partner organisations:

 
 

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Climate and Environmental Justice

We have advanced rights-based and gender-transformative transition frameworks through research that centres the lived experiences of women and marginalised communities on the frontlines of extractive energy policies, promoting climate and energy frameworks attentive to the social and care-related impacts of transition pathways. We have developed a clear vision for a gender-just transition, firmly rooted in gender and human rights norms, establishing both the legal basis and the direction for the transformative changes our planet and societies urgently need. In particular, the ‘Guiding Principles for Gender Equality and Human Rights in the Energy Transition’, a collective effort built through online consultations, an in-person workshop and multiple rounds of revision with activists, practitioners and experts from around the world, outline a transformative vision for reshaping global energy systems through a human rights and gender equality lens.

Our work recognises that the climate emergency is both an existential threat and an opportunity to reimagine societies built on social, gender, economic and environmental justice. We ground our advocacy in feminist and intersectional principles, prioritising the agency and perspectives of communities in the Global South who have contributed the least to the climate emergency yet face its most devastating consequences. Central to our approach is the understanding that energy is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right; essential for dignity, health, education, work and the realisation of countless other rights. We challenge approaches to the energy transition that risk replicating the harmful patterns of fossil fuel extraction and, instead, advocate for transformative policies that ensure human rights and gender equality as central to building climate-resilient societies rooted in dignity, justice and planetary well-being.

What's next?

We will continue to challenge approaches that treat energy transition as merely a technical shift, instead positioning it as an opportunity to reimagine economies and societies rooted in dignity for all, with particular attention to communities in the Global South who have contributed least to the climate emergency yet are most exposed to its worst effects.

We will connect community-level evidence and the lived experiences of those on the frontlines of extractive policies to national reform and global norm-setting, breaking down silos between human rights, gender, and climate movements, and advancing a shared vision that recognises just transitions as not only fundamental to achieving climate-resilient and sustainable societies, but as transformative pathways that advance social and gender equality, redistribute power and resources equitably, and ensure that energy systems serve the public good rather than profit.

We will mainstream rights-based and genderjust transition priorities in key multilateral spaces (particularly, within the Just Transition Work Programme and the to-be-developed Just Transition Mechanism, within the UNFCCC) to guarantee that just transitions are advanced at all levels.

We will also translate our work, through strategic advocacy, into at least two concrete policy wins, whether promoted, adopted, implemented, or scaled, in priority countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, or Kenya), ensuring these policies align with human rights standards, centre gender equality, and reflect the needs and views of affected communities.

We will build momentum for the progressive recognition of the right to sustainable energy to shift dominant narratives away from purely extractive solutions that sideline gendered impacts, community participation, and Global South perspectives.

Economic Justice and Climate Finance

Our work has transformed the global discussion on fiscal policy in a more just, emancipatory and sustainable direction. Our approach has combined both high-level, expert contributions within decisionmaking circles, with bold, impactful work on narrative change with the general public.

We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

At the regional level, our engagement with fiscal cooperation platforms such as the Platform for Fiscal Cooperation of Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC), where we are member of its Civil Society Consultative Council, and the African Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker, for which we participated in the pilot mission in Ivory Coast together with Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), have been critical in cementing a growing engagement between tax administrations and ministries of finance with international legal experts, exploring actionable and transformative initiatives, such as the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, beneficial ownership registries and corporate countryby-country reports, to be implemented at the international level.

At the local level, our interventions in fiscal reform debates in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Nigeria have contributed to shaping legislative outcomes in a more progressive, rights-compliant direction.

As for our leadership in narrative change, we have a measurable track record in delivering tailored, innovative campaigns which have decisively expanded economic justice constituencies by appealing to a broader tent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we created the ‘Date Cuenta’ campaign, coordinating over 40 organisations across civil society to deliver plain language, innovative messaging connecting progressive fiscal reforms to the financing of health, education and social protection. ‘Date Cuenta’ generated over 55 original campaign messages that were tailored to the realities of seven priority countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Honduras) and disseminated in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In doing so, we convened more than 65 online co-creation workshops with partners, coordinating a unified communications strategy which combined digital outreach, press and media coverage, and collaboration with influencers. Ultimately, ‘Date Cuenta’ resulted in more than 60,000 interactions on social media, coverage in major regional and international media outlets, including El País, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg and France 24, and the participation of at least 63 social media influencers through 58 dedicated publications. In collaboration with Fundación Gabo and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we also organised a two-day workshop in Bogota with 20 journalists from 13 countries, building a regional network trained in a human rights-based approach to fiscal policy that has since generated published media coverage on outlets such as La Diaria, Ciper, El Diario Ar and Milenio. Through ‘Date Cuenta’ and our regional advocacy, we strengthened civil society engagement in key processes, including the Financing for Development track and FfD4, co-organised highlevel dialogues with states and civil society from Latin America and Africa.

What's next?

We will shape the UN Tax Convention and its Protocols so they embed human rights principles, and we will stay engaged through follow-up processes (including the expected Conference of the Parties) to support effective implementation. We will keep linking tax and climate finance so that new resources mobilised through fiscal cooperation are channelled to adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage, in line with UNFCCC commitments.

Public Services for Care Societies

We have translated participatory research into accountability and policy outcomes.

In Ivory Coast, our work with Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains and affected communities since 2023 exposed how privatisation and lack of accountability restrict access to quality healthcare. It contributed to the closure of 1,022 illegal private health centres, an executive instrument strengthening the regulation of private hospitals across the country, and the creation of a permanent complaints management committee in healthcare through a bylaw issued by the prefect of Gagnoa. Partners engaged through this process also advanced concrete improvements at facility level: members of the Gagnoa Midwives Association who took part in the participatory action research pooled resources to renovate the neonatal unit of the Regional Hospital, and the Director of the Gagnoa General Hospital launched an action plan to expand services and improve patient reception, with the facility receiving the award for best hospital in the country in 2025.

In Kenya, our research with the Mathare Education Taskforce documented the absence of public schools and the expansion of private provision, evidencing impacts on households and caregivers and strengthening demands for free, quality public education. This work contributed to stronger community agency and collective organisation, alongside ongoing strategies ranging from communications to litigation to secure a public school in the area, some involving GI-ESCR and others led independently.

Across Africa, this work is complemented by a multi-country study examining the human rights implications of austerity in education and health, including how regressive fiscal policies, rising debt burdens and persistent underinvestment undermine the financing and delivery of public services.

In Latin America, from 29 November to 2 December 2021, over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future. Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted to demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.

We are currently advancing work on care systems, linking public services and fiscal justice through integrated research, advocacy and communications, including a regional campaign framing care as a collective responsibility requiring sustained public investment.

What's next?

In Ivory Coast, we will evaluate and strengthen the complaints management committee and position it as a replicable model for other health facilities. In Kenya, we will support the Mathare community to co-design a model public school for Mabatini and Ngei wards, grounded in human rights standards. Building on our multi-country austerity study, we will drive national advocacy on financing for education and health: advancing reforms in Ghana; launching a fiscal policy and public services financing agenda in Kenya through the CESCR process and targeted coalition work; and, in Nigeria, using the new tax acts in force since 1 January 2026 to catalyse a national accountability campaign for adequately funded, quality public services. In Latin America, we will amplify locally led care pilots across 8 countries and turn lessons into influence—advancing care policies that strengthen care organisations, protect care workers’ rights, support unpaid caregivers, include disability and family networks, and redistribute care more equitably.