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MANZINI – Closing the gender gap in the energy sector!

This is what the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy is trying to do in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Training and the National Curriculum Centre (NCC), as they are beginning a journey towards mainstreaming gender in the energy sector.

This was revealed by the Acting Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy, Thabile Nkosi, when she was officially opening a workshop for curriculum on designers on integrating gender and energy into the education curriculum. The workshop was held at The George Hotel in Manzini yesterday and it will run until Friday.

The acting PS said this activity was one of the strategic interventions towards changing the social norms, beliefs and stereotypes that limit the meaningful participation of women and girls in the energy sector and to correct any gender imbalances that may exist in the energy sector. “If these issues are imparted to learners at an early stage, social transformation would be realised as they grow up,” Nkosi said. She added that this would ultimately contribute immensely towards an increased participation and representation of women and girls, and thus closing the gender gap in the energy sector.

Integration

Thereafter, she said the focus of the workshop would be; awareness raising on gender and energy issues, presenting and deliberating on the key gender and energy issues for integration into the curriculum and conducting an audit of text books using the gender audit tool to inform integration of gender and energy issues into the curriculum.

The acting PS said special appreciation goes to the Ministry of Education and Training for facilitating attendance to the workshop, providing technical guidance and expertise to this process. She added that she had no doubt that they would come up with a good product that they would all be proud of.

On the same note, Nkosi said government recognised the need to integrate gender equality in all areas of national development. In that regard, she said the gender mainstreaming project in the energy sector which was launched by government in May 2022, was therefore a step towards implementing the National Energy Policy (2018), which establishes the link between energy and gender as significant for sustainable energy access. Again, she said the energy policy was determined to reduce inequalities in the energy sector through inter-alia ‘improving gender equality and empowerment’. She said other complementary policy frameworks include the National Gender Policy (2010) and the Education and Training Sector Policy (2018).

Framework

She said the National Gender Policy provides a framework for mainstreaming gender into all sectors of national development. Nkosi added that it had a thematic area on environment and natural resources with particular interest in energy and environmental conservation. She said this perspective had been informed by the realisation that women depend greatly on these resources as they perform their gender roles and responsibilities.

To this effect, she said the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy initiated the project on gender mainstreaming in the energy sector in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Training, the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office and Eswatini Electricity Company through the ‘Network Reinforcement andAccess Project (NRAP)’ which was funded by the World Bank. She said the gender subcomponent project was entitled, ‘Closing the Gender Gap in the Energy Sector’.

The workshop was also attended by the Director of NCC, Musa Hlophe and Director of Educational Testing Guidance Psychological Services Phindile Dlamini, among others.