Gender Action Plan Approach and Development

SAEP will employ an agile approach to design, deploy, monitor, and sustain interventions that are compatible with and responsive to the evolving needs of the region over the next five years. The program recognizes that to sustainably advance the accessibility, reliability, and security of the regional energy ecosystem, it must promote energy-enabling environment reforms, stimulate private sector participation, and promote new investment within the power sector. As part of the Power Africa initiative, SAEP will work to contribute to the Power Africa goals. Over the course of the program's five years of implementation, SAEP will work to increase electricity supply and access, delivering 3,000 MWs of new power generation, 1,000 MWs of new transmission capacity, and 3 million new connections. SAEP recognizes gender integration as a strategy to accelerate women's socio-economic empowerment, achievement of project objectives, and to maximize its impact. The program has a specific, cross-cutting gender equality goal, explicitly listed in its Year 1 Work Plan, which includes increasing access by women to modern electricity services, increasing female employment opportunities at utilities and government agencies, and increasing the number of women trained in electricity reform and associated fields. The SAEP team laid a strong foundation for including gender integration as a key component of the program by including gender integration as an explicit cross-cutting theme in the SAEP Year 1 Work Plan. The team also hired a full-time local Gender Advisor early in Year 1 to prioritize and lead the gender work, and the SAEP Chief of Party and Engagement Principal underscored the importance of real gender integration to all technical advisors working on the project. SAEP requires a Scope of Work for every activity listed in the Work Plan, which includes a Gender Component section where the gender implications and gender integration efforts for the activity are discussed. The Gender Action Plan was developed in line with SAEP's Year 1 Work Plan and serves as a roadmap for the practical implementation of SAEP's gender equality goal. It lays out the gender equality goals for the SAEP program, the overarching high-level entry points for gender mainstreaming across the contract, and the specific implementation activities for each program outcome to address local social and gender issues. The goal of the Gender Action Plan is to lay out priority areas and activities where SAEP can advance its stated gender objectives while moving forward on its core program objectives. The Gender Action Plan has key sections that enable SAEP team members to understand the gender constraints in the region and potential interventions to address those constraints. The business case for women as drivers of megawatts and connections highlights the importance of meaningful inclusion of women in energy policymaking and the supply and demand sides of the energy value chain for programs to be successful. This idea is at the core of why the program invests in gender integration as a priority and is critical for leadership and technical advisor buy-in, helping the team reach its gender goals more efficiently and effectively.