GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY

The Gender Mainstreaming Strategy for USAID Clean Power Asia provides a framework to integrate gender equality into renewable energy planning, policy, and investment across ASEAN and Lower Mekong countries. It identifies the energy sector as heavily male-dominated and proposes a 'twin-track approach' that combines project-cycle mainstreaming with the development of 'gender champions' to address systemic biases. Key recommendations include adopting gender-lens investing, ensuring at least 33% female participation in activities, and shifting M&E from output-based to outcome-based tracking.

• The USAID Clean Power Asia program identifies two critical gender issues: the need to reduce disparities in access to, control over, and benefits from reliable and affordable grid-connected power solutions, and the need to increase the capability of women and gender champions to influence energy sources and power generation mechanisms.
• The energy sector in ASEAN member states and Lower Mekong countries is characterized as male-dominated and masculine, which limits the ability of female experts to influence decisions. This is driven by the low social position of women in the Lower Mekong region—where leadership is assumed to be male and access to capital, land, and information is limited—and a culture in energy institutions that views gender objectives as not 'relevant' to energy work.
• The strategy adopts a 'twin-track approach' to gender mainstreaming. The first track integrates gender considerations across the project cycle (planning, policy, and investment). The second track focuses on strategic activities to address systemic biases, specifically 'Task G', which aims to foster gender champions by enhancing their skills and creating an enabling institutional environment.
• A review of the Year 1 Annual Work Plan (June 27, 2016 – September 30, 2017) found that while a Gender Implementation Plan exists with explicit objectives, these were not yet well-integrated into the program's primary tasks. Additionally, existing M&E indicators were found to be output-based (capturing training attendance) rather than outcome-based, lacking the ability to capture in-depth change stories or gender-related policy changes.
• The strategy proposes specific measures for different program tasks: Task 1 (Planning) focuses on incorporating gender assessments into feasibility studies; Task 2 (Policy) involves reviewing energy plans through a gender lens; Task 3 (Investments) suggests 'gender lens investing' to use gender data for better investment decisions; and Task 4 (Communication) emphasizes inclusive language and capturing gender impact stories.
• To ensure implementation, the strategy sets a target for program interventions to include at least 33% women as participants and beneficiaries in all activities.

APA

Giri, K. (2017). GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Bangkok/SEI_2017_Report_USAID-CleanPowerAsia-GenderMainstreamingStrategy.pdf

Chicago

Giri, Kalpana. GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2017. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Bangkok/SEI_2017_Report_USAID-CleanPowerAsia-GenderMainstreamingStrategy.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Giri |first1=Kalpana |title=GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=31 July 2017 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Bangkok/SEI_2017_Report_USAID-CleanPowerAsia-GenderMainstreamingStrategy.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{giri2017gender, author = {Giri, Kalpana}, title = {{GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2017}, month = jul, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Bangkok/SEI_2017_Report_USAID-CleanPowerAsia-GenderMainstreamingStrategy.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }