World Bank injects funds into renewable energy projects to advance women’s empowerment

The World Bank Group is collaborating with the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to explore solutions aimed at addressing gender segregation in the engineering sector.

The global bank is supporting the BPC through a loan of US$88 million for renewable energy development in Botswana. Another US$30 million loan and a US$4 million grant have been set aside from the Green Climate Fund’s Sustainable Renewables Risk Mitigation Initiative Facility.

The project will also benefit from technical assistance on solar, wind, and storage project development carried out through an additional US$3.5 million grant from the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program.
The World Bank says the first institutional gender equality and women’s employment policy “will focus on driving progress towards closing gender gaps in employment and leadership through targeted Human Resource (HR) options and indicators.”
“As an employer, BPC has committed to equal access and opportunity to current and prospective female employees to foster gender diversity. Due to the nature of its business, one of the scarce skills within the corporation is engineering, which remains a male-dominated profession in Botswana,” the Bank said.
BPC will also be supported in the “adoption of BPC gender and employment policy with targets, stronger focus on the school-to-work transition, recruitment strategies (including for the BPC training school which offers vocational training) and understudy skills transfers for women”.

There shall also be “further training, especially in Renewable Energy, and job rotation opportunities for women in technical and engineering positions, women’s leadership training and sponsorship opportunities to increase advancement, and focus on supporting workplace wellness, safety and respectful workplace conduct and anti-discrimination training and programs.”

It said; “Discussions with HR and female engineers at BPC have identified barriers in terms of attracting and retaining female talent and skills (e.g, mining sector is actively recruiting female talent from BPC) and opportunities to enhance women’s career progression in terms of skills transfer, on-the-job learning through job rotation, study tours and enhancing workplace respect.”

The World Bank notes that gender gaps in education remain a reality in the country, affecting women’s participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields.

“For instance, female students only account for 21 percent of all students in engineering and technology subjects at the University of Botswana. Gender gaps in the energy sector remains high, based on the recent data collected from BPC, women constitute about 24 percent of the BPC workforce (total of 2,221 employees as of March 2024, of which 539 are women and 1682 are men) and 21 percent of the executive and senior management team,” the World Bank said. It says in terms of women in technical positions, men outnumber women 1 to 5, with 16 percent of all technical staff being women (the total of employees in technical positions is 1,535, of which 240 are women).

The World Bank project will finance the necessary grid investment and Botswana’s first 50MW utility-scale battery energy storage system to enable the first wave of renewable energy generation to be smoothly integrated and managed in the grid. In addition, the World Bank project will support the Government of Botswana’s continued effort to enhance energy access by financing the grid expansion to rural villages and improve electricity services in the Southern districts.

“With the financing support and technical assistance from the World Bank, this investment will support us to harness our rich renewable energy resources for a reliable, affordable and sustainable energy future. This is not only critical for our own energy security, but also provides an important driver of economic growth,” says minerals and energy minister, Lefoko Moagi.

By combining technical assistance and public investments, the project will help mitigate the risks in renewable energy investments.

“The World Bank is pleased to support Botswana’s commitment to expand domestic energy generation with renewable solutions,” says Satu Kahkonen, World Bank Country Director for Botswana.
Kahkonen added, “In addition to financing, the World Bank will provide technical assistance to facilitate further renewable energy projects; this is an important part of our commitment to support more sustainable and inclusive growth in Botswana.”