Assessment and Opportunities

This white paper provides an overview of renewable energy sectors in the Lower Mekong countries, an assessment of gender issues within the sectors, and recommendations for promoting gender equality and responsiveness.

This white paper aims to illuminate women working in the energy sectors of the focus nations as part of a gender and renewable energy assessment informing the program’s Gender Implementation Plan. This includes women working in utilities, power generation, distribution and transmission, and regulatory bodies, as well as women working in the private sector and in civil society and non-government organizations (NGO).

The scope of this paper is the energy sectors of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam, with a focus on grid-connected (rather than off-grid and mini-grid) renewable energy. The paper reviews academic and grey literature as well as presents the results from key informant interviews of individuals strategically placed in the renewable energy sector of the four focus countries. Findings are organized according to the energy and renewable energy value chain: (i) policy environment: gender responsiveness in (renewable) energy planning that considers demand side issues such as benefits of sustainable energy to women and men in households and communities; (ii) leadership in employment in the private renewable energy sector; (iii) consultations for infrastructure development that consider the needs and interests of women and men stakeholders; and (iv) end-use issues that favor equal well-being for women and men, the poor, and other social groups.

USAID and Gender

Gender is a crosscutting theme for all USAID programming. USAID Clean Power Asia has developed and is implementing a Gender Implementation Plan to ensure gender equality and inclusion is addressed across program activities.

USAID Clean Power Asia

The USAID Clean Power Asia program assists the four Lower Mekong countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, to encourage power sector investments in environmentally friendly, renewable energy sources. The program specifically focuses on scaling up investment in grid-connected renewable power.