 Okay, colleagues, welcome back to our second session. Thank you for all of the colleagues who intervened in the earlier sessions. We know there's a lot of people who want to intervene and we do hope to get to everybody throughout the course of the day. And of course, the more succinct you can be in all of your remarks that we do really want to hear, the more time we'll have for more people. Our next session now is on advancing gender equality, a key issue that's already come up many times throughout the morning. And I'm delighted we have a focus on this session and I'm equally delighted that it's going to be chaired by Andriana Sokolva, who's the Director General in the Director General for Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion in the European Commission. So Andriana, we're delighted to have you with us. Delighted you've agreed to chair this session and I hand straight over to you. Distinguished participants in this summit, I'm really very happy to be here today. And I want also to join everybody's thinking for the organization of this event because this is exactly the model of how we should be discussing the green transition. Especially its people-centered approach and the impact of any action on how social and personal aspects should be taken into account. This session is extremely good because we will be discussing the gender inequalities in the energy sector, which is one of the sectors with the strongest gender gap. And that's a fact that women are underrepresented in the energy sector in many EU and non-EU countries. And according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, in the renewable energy sector, the share of women is one-third of the workforce. But the share of women in the oil and gas industry, it's only 22%. And looking closer at the kind of jobs women are doing within the renewable energy sector, we see that the majority work in administrative roles. It's almost 45%. Rather than in STEM, which is only 28%, or other technical jobs, which is 35%. In Europe, the energy sector is dominated by male professionals, engineers are mainly men, and they are over-represented at about 78%. And women are only 22% of the energy sector workforce. So we observe similar trends for other key sectors, which are linked to the energy transition, where the share of women is also low, and such are the sectors of construction, agriculture, forestry, transportation. The European Commission and European Union have adopted a number of initiatives to address and support gender equality. Let me start by mentioning that it is extremely important and it is enshrined in European pillar of social rights. Principle number two of the 20 principles of the pillar is about equality of treatment and opportunities between men and women. And in 2020, the European Commission adopted a gender equality strategy, which has among the deliverables initiatives like the work-life balance directive, which seeks to enable parents and people with caring responsibilities to better balance their work and family lives. The pay transparency directive, which introduces rules for an effective enforcement of the equal pay principle. The gender balance on corporate boards directive, which sets targets for EU companies listed on the EU stock exchanges to accelerate the move towards better gender balance. We have also established in 2021, an equality platform for the energy sector, aimed at offering a space for discussion and sharing of best practices on issues relating to equality for different stakeholders. These initiatives support all sectors, including the clean energy sector, but we have a special focus on the support for gender equality for the fair transition. First, I would like to single out the council recommendation on ensuring fair transition towards climate neutrality, which provides guidance to member states to set comprehensive policy packages to ensure that no one is left behind. In the case of women, the recommendation suggests to ensure equal access to education, training, and lifelong learning for women and other vulnerable groups, to promote women's entrepreneurship and social economy, especially in transitions which are covered by the Just Transition Fund, and foster participatory and inclusive whole of society approach to just transition, empowering organizations representing women and other vulnerable groups. Another example are the skills academies in the context of the Net Zero Industrial Act, which also consider the need for activation of more women and young people. The European Commission commitment is also visible internationally as we work at the Clean Energy Ministerial, where the commission work on the gender equality in energy transition initiative, and the equal by 30 campaign to support equal pay, equal leadership, and equal opportunities for women in the energy sector by 2030. We also work in the empowering people initiative together with Canada and the US to support skills and inclusivity. From a European perspective, I'd like to finish here that the fairness of the transition must take into account this gender angle, and we need to put in place enough incentives and measures to allow women successfully develop their careers in the sectors through the energy transition. We should not forget that renewable energy sectors often face labor and skills shortages, which may hamper the energy transition. Skills were mentioned by many of you, and this is a moment to refer to the European year of skills, which will be finishing on the 8th of May. Since 9th of May last year, the European Union has announced 12 months of action throughout Europe at different levels, drawing the attention and putting the spotlight on skills and the necessity for everyone to be upskilled and reskilled regularly to be agile and also matching the needs of the labor market. And within these skills angle, we're also putting a lot of attention to young people and women because they will need an additional support in many instances. We have adopted an action plan for labor and skills shortages a month ago, and we are identifying also skills, upskilling, reskilling measures throughout Europe and throughout different levels of governance as an important step in making sure that the transition is accompanied by the proper assistance to people who need to change their skills or their competencies and be ready to have another profession or another job. We must continue exchanging best practices, and I'm very happy that today this is one of the points and one of the reasons for this meeting to exchange practices and experiences and effective strategies to ensure that we not only accelerate the grid resistance such, but we create the right opportunities for the women to play a more active role in it. And I am conscious about time, so I will not talk more, but I will just introduce our keynote speakers today, and I want to tell you that I'm really looking forward for all discussions that we have today to make sure that we are sharing, we are learning from each other, and we are ready to implement some of the lessons learned. I'll start by my first keynote speaker, which will be Sarah Agnesen. She already spoke a while ago. She's the State Secretary for Energy in Spain, and Sarah, you have the floor, please. Thank you, Chair. Muchas gracias, Adriana, por permitirme la oportunidad de estar aquí. Thank you very much, Adriana, for giving me the opportunity to speak as a keynote speaker on this important topic. I think we're all aware of the importance of including women in this energy transition. We're also aware of the opportunities provided by the energy transition to be a catalyzer for gender equality. We have an agenda for transition and an agenda for equality, and they have to move forward hand in hand. And here, I'd like to share six lessons we've learned in Spain, which I believe could serve as a basis for all of us around this table. The first is the importance of data. Without information, it's impossible to follow what's going on on the ground to understand how many women are employed in the energy sector and other related sub-sectors. Without this data, without that information, we won't be able to adopt the necessary measures. This is also important in light of the qualifications, which will be required in the future. Secondly, this knowledge must enable us to disseminate and implement the most effective policies at government level, but also within companies. We've heard very successful examples in our country of companies who have included the aim of including women at positions of responsibility. Now, when it comes to the energy transition, we have adopted a cross-cutting approach at government level, involving not just the Ministry for Equality, but also in our 2030 agenda, we include gender equality. We also include this in public procurement processes. Our recovery plan, which was in response to a very complicated period for all of us is based on four main principles. The first is the environmental transition, the second, digital, and the third, gender equality, and the fourth is territorial equality. Now, third, we mustn't only have data, we have to conduct an assessment of that data with indicators, which are very important. And five to six years ago, we didn't actually have any information on the situation and its development. So we need to make this information available to society as a whole and all relevant institutions. Fourth, just as we said in the previous session, and I believe this is relevant for all of our discussions, we have to work together, companies, government, civil society, private and public sectors working together with the same goal, ensuring effective equality. Fifth, the role of institutions, not governments per se, but institutions, agencies, those of you who have a capacity to disseminate this knowledge and to participate in various fora to ensure people know what's going on. For example, this agency itself, but also the advisory council, which was created in 2021, they play a significant role in recognizing the importance of this data as well as disseminating that data. We need indicators regarding the number of renewables, the number of electrical cars, the number of women who are involved in the renewable energy sector, not only as staff, but also in leadership positions. And lastly, a transition such as the one that we require needs us to ensure that women and men are all working together to achieve our goals. This is why we believe that we need to encourage young girls to pursue careers in science. We've seen this in Spain. There is a lack of women in scientific careers and study paths, and that will be particularly important to address as part of this transition. Now, my colleague from the previous session also mentioned that we also need to be fostering this at university level. Adriana, the chair also mentioned the Equal By 2030 objectives, which aim to increase women's visibility in work through training programs, mentorship programs as well. We also want to ensure effective equality when it comes to innovation. We need to know how many women are involved in innovation sectors as part of this transition. We also need to have better data, as I mentioned earlier. So we have an observatory, which is working to that end. We've also been working with entities, public and private entities with the civil society as well. And here, I'd just like to make two last comments. I know that I don't have much time, but I'm wrapping up. In Spain, we have been assessing how women are involved in employment. And we've seen that the energy sector can actually attract more women's participation compared to conventional energy sectors. We also see that the wage gap is lower, and that's important. And then we also have an association of women for energy. And these types of associations are very important in disseminating this knowledge to young women and girls. Now, last, 40% of work for mining sectors, which are usually dominated by men, are actually now involving women. Thank you. Thank you very much, Secretary of State. Very relevant comments and very useful reference to activities that Spain is doing now. Let me now turn to another continent, and to a key one in international discussions on just transition. I would like to invite Ms. Sheila Oparocha, who is the Director of the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, Energia, and who had agreed kindly to share her views. Please, you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you for inviting Energia to speak at this sustained session. The stock taking of the Sustainable Development Goals at the SDG Summit in September 2023 recognized that Sustainable Development Goal number seven on energy is one of the SDGs that produces the most co-benefits and synergies with other development goals, including SDG 5 on gender. Yet, the reality today that we face is stark. According to the UN Women and UN Dessert 2023 report, and less progress accelerates by 2030, an estimated 341 million women and children will still lack electricity, 85% of which will reside on my continent in Africa. The absence of clean cooking also perpetuates the cycle of poverty and reinforces gender disparities. Today, I'd like to share with you a five point framework advocated by Energia that can enable women to be drivers of a just and inclusive clean energy transition. The first is that we must prioritize ending energy poverty. This entails using a leaving the one behind approach that targets women and is intentional not only by increasing their access, but also their ownership and decision making over sustainable energy products and services. A good model of this is the PMUI scheme in India, which facilitated access to clean cooking fuels for millions of rural households through direct cash transfers to bank accounts registered to women. Second, we have to provide equal opportunities for women's career advancements so that they can enjoy decent and productive employment. As has already been stated, the energy sector remains unrepresentative of the workforce at large, despite the clear benefits of employing a gender diverse workforce. To take advantage of the millions of jobs that the clean energy transition offers, we need to encourage women in STEM education and offer equal pay as we heard earlier. But we also need to make the work environment more favorable for women with family-friendly human resource policies, zero tolerance for sexual harassment, and consideration of women's safety and mobility. Third, we need to exponentially increase gender smart investments and financing for women's businesses. Supporting female-owned and lead businesses in local communities where commercial distribution networks are inadequate or nonexistent is a successful model that is spreading rapidly. For example, counting only the work of energy and two other women-led programs in the global south, solar sister and frontier markets, in less than 10 years, 42,000 women energy entrepreneurs in Africa and Asia have been supported, providing energy access to 21 million consumers in low-income communities. However, in spite of these tangible impacts, less than 30% of off-grid investments go to female-led companies, according to the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association. Fourth, we need to create enabling policy and market environments that champion gender equality with pathways for women's individual and collective agency and leadership. Women-led organizations and gender-responsive financing needs to be supported so that we can scale up successful models. And we need to step out our efforts to include gender in international energy and climate cooperation. It is concerning that for energy, only 18% of overseas development assistance is tagged for gender, compared to 45% overall. And finally, we must have accountability on gender. By mandating the collection of sex-disaggregated data and monitoring gender-specific indicators in all energy and climate transition interventions, we can track gaps and progress. You and women has pointed out that SDG7 is one of only six SDGs that do not include any gender indicators to measure progress. This is frustrating, because it is well recognized that gender equality is key to success in meeting the energy SDG targets. Moving forward, we must not repeat the current mistake post-agenda 2030. We call on the International Energy Agency and the other custodian agencies of SDG7 to show leadership on this issue, including at the forthcoming UN Summit for the Future. Let us galvanize transformative partnerships for agenda-just, inclusive, clean energy future. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Oparocha. I have very nice insights and very structured presentation of your ideas, so thank you very much. Our third keynote intervention will be from Marcelino Madrigal, who is the Energy Division Chief for the Inter-American Development Bank. And we would like to know how the Inter-American Development Bank approaches the issue of gender equality and which are the tasks lying ahead. So Mr. Madrigal, please. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. The Inter-American Development Bank is the main source for sustainable financing in Latin America and the Caribbean. And I will mention three pillars of our goal to advance gender equality in the energy transition. The first pillar is policy. The IDB was the first development bank to include gender performance standards in our social and environmental assessment of projects. This meant that our interventions should do not harm or disproportionately affect women and diverse group. But since then, our gender and diversity action plans have strengthened our work to require now gender alignment in any financing intervention. And alignment means that we must identify gender gaps in our financing recipients, implement concrete actions to reduce those gaps, allocate appropriate resources, and implement a monitoring framework. In more specific terms, our financing operations in the energy sector influence companies and institutions policies on gender in different ways. For example, in Chile, as part of a policy they launched to advance the energy transition, also with the leadership of Minister Pardo here, reforms were implemented to require gender parity on energy sector, civil society, councils for the energy sector, and criteria to advance equity indicators in procurement of public sector, in the energy sector. In Brazil, or loans, for example, to Santa Catarina Distribution Company implemented the first gender and diversity policy in the utility and delivered training for more than 400 women. In Ecuador, our support led to the engagement of 22 companies that, for the first time in the country, implemented gender and disability plans. So we have moved, say, from a no harm policy many years ago to now a policy that ensures our financing have positive returns on gender. Since 2021, any new financing operation in the energy sector has been aligned with this policy. But this is our work in the policy front. A second important pillar of the use energy transition is investing in infrastructure for access to electricity, the lack of which disproportionately affects women. While Latin America and the Caribbean has advanced and 90% of people have access to electricity, there are still 16 million without access to it. Over the past six years, we have been made it possible for seven 2.5 million people to get access to electricity. Latin America and the Caribbean is a developing region that is closest to achieve universal energy access and by the way with the cleanest electricity in the planet. This is a signal that clean and access inclusive transition may be possible. Also, our analytical work with international labor organization has estimated that a Latin America that reaches net zero could create 50 million jobs. And our study in public, in generation companies in Latin America has shown that the ones who employ more women have better performance in labor capital. But for women to capture those works, new skills are required. And this is the third pillar of our work, investing in people, upskilling, and reskilling. For example, in Panama, Guyana, Honduras, the IDB, we have finance and supported programs that have trained more than 300 women on rooftop solar installation, maintenance, and design and operation of mini grids. In Colombia, in the transport sector, we are supporting an ambitious project to retrain female drivers to operate electric buses in the city of Bogota. The program will train more than 450 women so that they can be hired by transport operators reaching a target of 5% women driving electric buses. In Jamaica, with a partnership from Japan, we are supporting training more than 400 job mechanics and other automotive industry stakeholders on electric vehicle maintenance. Also, in collaboration with the Green Climate Fund, we have established a 450 million fund for electric mobility in nine countries in the region, and will include the creation of the Latin American Regional Sectoral Council of Skills for Electric Mobility. This is in response to the gaps we see in the skills for these transition segments that are accelerating in Latin America. Of course, there are still many more challenges ahead. Women and other minorities are still underrepresented, and the full potential of the transition to lead people's lives, reduce inequality, and improve the competitiveness of the region is still to be tapped into. A few weeks ago, and this is my final remark, the IDB adopted a new institutional strategy which will increase our financing capacity, but above all, bring more impact. IDB Impact Plus is the first strategy in the bank that puts just transition as a core development principle. We look forward to continuing supporting women in the quality in the energy sector and learning from all of you today. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Matrizal. Very useful feedback on how the IDB is working and helping women in Latin America, but also some forward-coming projects which are quite interesting on the Impact Plus. Now I have to turn to our fourth keynote speaker, the final keynote speaker for this session, another key voice from Africa, and I'm inviting Ms. Bertard Lamani, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Africa Women in Electricity and Power. Ms. Lamani, you have the floor. Thank you so much for having us. We often enjoy participating in these dialogues organized by the IEA. I have titled my topic today as Empowering Marginalized Groups, a Catalyst for Africa's Clean Energy Transition and Economic Growth. Without mining, there can be no net zero. While zero impact mining is impossible, mining must be responsible, a careful balance of economic, environmental, political and social challenges. Achieving net zero by 2050 essentially means that we must completely face out fossil fuels in under 30 years. We can't do that without copper. On the journey to net zero electricity is our main tool. The backbone of our electrical system is copper and other critical minerals, most of which will be found in our continent. A people-centered clean energy transition globally where no one is left behind. Women, youth and persons with disability placed at the center of all transitions, ensuring dignified economic participation across all sectors, requires a total reframing of outlook and convictions. Women play a catalytic role in economic development, serving as consumers of various forms of energy as entrepreneurs and policy architects. Leveraging their contextual understanding of local conditions and communities, women contribute significantly to policy design, strategy formulation and execution. Women's access to and consumption of energy catalyzes various economic activities, driving productivity and growth across multiple sectors. Let's look at Africa. Without energy, without access to affordable clean energy, there can be no transition. African women represent a vast reservoir of entrepreneurial potential, talent and resilience. Leaders must recognize the untapped potential that women hold in driving economic growth across multiple indicators. Enabling this multiplier effect necessitates an ecosystem approach. We must collaboratively harness this potential and utilize it as the driving force behind Africa's success. In Africa, women represent 58% of self-employment and contribute approximately 13% to the continent's GDP, underscoring their significant economic impact. However, despite their substantial contributions, women entrepreneurs encounter a significant gender funding gap, estimated at a staggering 42 billion US dollars. And once in a lifetime opportunity is clear, the question is how do we catalyze change? Let's look at access to finance. There are networks of industry associations for women, youth, and persons with disabilities, NPCs, NPOs, NGOs. They must be empowered with market-related operating financial resources to act as execution arms for both the public and private sector socio-economic development initiatives. We need capacity-building interventions for these entities to strengthen their governance structures, to receive climate impact financing without incurring high administrative costs or consultants or expert costs for applying for these resources. Global powers must designate real finance for real impact for these entities to deliver wide-reaching initiatives across domestic markets and regions. Let's look at some examples that can be deployed through these networks to ensure continental impact. Educational initiatives to teach the construct of existing and emerging value chains and supply chains across clean energy products, services, solutions, and systems in local languages and using methodologies applicable to domestic markets. Producing dictionaries of value chains in clean energy transition in local languages so we all speak the same language. Delivering tailored, African, and gendered just energy transition skills development programs for entrepreneurs, utilities, and community leaders. Reviewing and supporting the basic education ecosystem with finance and human resources to review curricula and include value chains for clean energy and other forms of transitions, setting the foundations for just transitions. Finally, access to technology. Supporting initiatives that create operations and maintenance capacity in domestic markets for all imported technologies, machinery, solutions, systems in clean energy. It's okay to import products while we pursue clean energy transition. It's not okay to disrupt and displace labor markets. Let's work collaboratively together to build local skills alongside the transition and afford local populations a fair chance to participate in existing and emerging value chains. Therefore, as you can see, advancing marginalized groups and mainstreaming them is beyond a moral obligation. It is a business and an economic imperative. Let's do things differently now so that we do not spend revenues generated in future correcting the failures of today's decisions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Lamani. And also, I want to thank all the four inspirational keynote speakers for sharing their views and their point of view. And it's been really quite informative but also quite inspiring to listen to you what your plans are. Now, I would first open the floor for a broader discussion and comments from participants. I'd like to invite you to raise your flags when you want to speak. And our discussion will be framed around three key questions. First, what strategies have been effective in bringing more gender equality into different parts of the transition? Second, what are the successful examples of promoting women's participation and leadership in clean energy entrepreneurship and workforce development? And how can policy makers collaborate with other stakeholders to develop gender sensitive clean energy transition strategies? So, I don't see any raised flags for the moment so I would like to, okay, let me see who's there. Okay, our colleague from the International Lab Organization raised the flag so I'll give you the floor first, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, we've already heard a lot of very important statements about the need for data and the need for evidence. So, I want to begin with some of the ILO's evidence. Our assessment of employment creation through an implementation of the Paris Agreement says that we can create as many as 20 million new jobs in the clean energy sector. But of that total, only six million are projected to go to women. On the other hand, we see female employment in renewable energy at about 32% globally, which is better than the 22% in oil and gas. And in solar photovoltaics, it's as high as 40%. This is encouraging, they're not good enough. So, we must think specifically that our actions can either reproduce and entrench existing disparities, or they can deliberately chart a path toward a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable economy through a just transition. A gender responsive just transition takes account of the fact that women face compounded inequalities in labor market because the discrimination may be based on sex, but also on race, on indigeneity, on disability status, and socioeconomic status. Think about how difficult it may be for a woman from an indigenous group who has a disability to achieve equal status. We need to dismantle the structural barriers that exclude women from opportunities in all their diversity, including the fact that a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work falls to women. Importantly, we need to ensure that women have equal access to education, training, skilling, and upskilling opportunities that the green economy will require. We know that lifting women and girls lifts whole communities, and so that's why we are working to do that at the ILO. For example, in collaboration with Germany, we are currently implementing a four million euro project on green jobs for women in Western Africa. The project supports women operating in mangrove restoration and aquaculture to increase value addition, improving their working conditions, and promoting access to social protections. And we hope that this project will provide learnings for further projects on gender equality in a sustainable and green future. As Sheila Apparocha stated, everyone deserves decent work. This includes equal pay for work of equal value and freedom from gender-based harassment and violence. Leaving no one behind is part of the ILO's DNA, and let's make sure it is part of the DNA of every organization here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Drake. I'll pass the floor to Carolina Basualdo, the mayor of Despenadores from Argentina. Por favor. Thank you very much for inviting me to take part in this summit. And I'd also like to acknowledge the fact that you have invited representatives from cities here. I'm not just representing Argentina, but the regional compact for mayors in Latin America with 13,000 cities around the world in 45 countries working towards the climate transition. We are very grateful to be able to take part in this meeting because in each and every one of our cities, we have been rolling out public policies aiming to address the climate change transition. Now, we have heard speakers saying that 340 million women, 8% of the global population, will be living in poverty if we don't address the existing inequalities. So here we have the private sector, labor, the public sector as well, and we all need to work together to create enabling conditions to move forward. Now, when it comes to strategies, I think it's essential to encourage female leadership, not only in cities, but also at leadership level because women can foster policies for moving forward with gender equality. We've heard examples from Chile and Spain, which have been very successful, but we also need to work on promoting women's involvement in labor and in companies. We need to ensure that it's not just about ensuring 50-50 parity, but actually involving women in a meaningful manner. We also need to take a robust gender approach with a focus on the climate transition in projects. We need to encourage women to become involved in the green transition. We have been working as part of a network of local municipalities with Cordoba Council, and we've been working on a pilot project alongside local universities and the private sector, which enable women to discover more about developing photovoltaic panels. So we're involving the agricultural sector and also the renewable energy sector in order to offer women an alternative form of employment in the agricultural sector, which is one of the key sectors in our area. We also need to look at different levels of women's involvement, and at the COP28 we talked about the vision for climate transitions, which will enable each country to roll out a multi-dimensional approach in line with the Paris agreements with leadership and effective public policies, which will enable women to lead this transition along with children. We know that they can be, in some cases, the most vulnerable, and we know that climate change is twice as negative in some cases for women, so we have to take all of these factors into account. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for representing the views of a broader community than your city. Now I'll pass the floor to Ms. Rhoda Boteng, who is the program coordinator for climate change and just transition in the International Trade Union configuration Africa. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. To back some of the points already made by team speakers, I'd like to reiterate some statistics which helps us put the discussions into perspective. Recent reports show that women work almost two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half the world's food, and earn 10% of the world's income. Even more striking, women and girls make up 70% of the world's one billion poorest people. Specifically in the energy sector, as has been alluded by most, wages for women in the sector are almost 15% lower than for men at the same scale levels, less than 15% of senior managers in the energy sector are women. When it comes to entrepreneurship, only about 11% of startup founders are women. This is much lower than outside of the sector. In short, the fossil fuel industries driving the climate crisis and thus widen existing gender inequalities and discrimination. In some countries, the value of unpaid care work is up to 60%. And this work includes unpaid domestic work and paid childcare and unpaid adult care. This analysis highlights gendered inequalities within the labor market. Now, what are some effective strategies we propose as labor? One, it's imperative to understand women's roles and sectors that will contribute to or be affected by the transition to low carbon emissions. These sectors include, but are not limited to mining, energy, agriculture, forestry, and land use. The economic, social, and political participation is necessary for their lived realities to be reflected in policies, structures, processes, and solutions that guide a just transition. We cannot emphasize this participation and inclusion. To strengthen women's leadership capacity using participatory strategies whilst providing women with skills training. In several countries such as India, we recognize that strengthening women's leadership capacity through targeted programs has enhanced community efforts to reduce poverty. And a lot of these examples exist with SEWA. Three, targeted training and skills development for women in new and emerging sectors with policies to guarantee job security for women in the transition. And last but not the least, it's essential that finance is provided to support innovative women-led projects and scale up existing startups, especially in developing countries. I must say several of such initiatives exist. And I hope the upcoming initiative by the IEA on promoting clean, cool care and we'll take into account this. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ms. Boateng. My distinguished next speaker is Ms. Lossy. Don't need to introduce her again. She's popping the first panel, so please, Ms. Lossy. Thank you so much, Chair. We just want to say that our just transition discourse and advocacy must be gender responsive and inclusive. Organized labor is very articulate in the importance of social positions and roles of women and men in the just transition. And these are identified as being the determinator that equip both genders with disasters relating to climate change when it happens. The same factors can be enablers and also a barrier in various ways. The incorporation of gender equality and equity is part of a wider working class struggle around the economic and political economy. Therefore, it is important that we continue to advance and advocate for justice and gender equality in the transition. As trade unions, our position on the just transition is based on ensuring adequate investment and financing environmentally friendly activities that create decent jobs. Paying a living wages and meet standards of health and safety by also promoting gender equality. So we must also recognize that the gender just transition will prioritize women and young people in the just transition. And we want to say that it must be planned and just. It must not create new crisis that as we seek to fix the existing ones. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ms. Lossi. In fact, you're very sharp to the point and also quick. So I'll give the floor now to Germany for your intervention, please. Thank you very much. And our motto is already on my thing. Women should energize women. This is an initiative the German government has started. And when I was still the energy ambassador of Germany, I was one at the core. So I make a bit of a promotion for this institution, which is there to that female energy experts from around the world discuss challenges and energy transition, provide insight and perform a network. And I think this is the most important thing. And maybe one or the other of you has been to the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue where we make sure that we first have the panels full of women speakers before we have men, 50% have to be women before we start inviting men. And I think this has led very often to a high level of specialized speakers. When government then comes in most of the time, the level got down because in government, unfortunately, men are more prevalent still than in the other area. But now to your questions. Unfortunately, in Germany, like everywhere, the same issue is true, that there is the disparity in the gender distribution, in drop market payment, energy-related education, and participation in energy policy decisions. Strategies that effectively address gender inequalities should establish measures to ensure transparent and fair recruitment process, promote a supportive environment involving counseling and training to address unconscious gender-specific biases, improve conditions for balancing work and private life, such as adequate childcare opportunities and flexible working hours. Act transparent to reduce the gender pay gap and ensure fair collective bargaining. We need to better understand, however, what is really happening and as has been said by many speakers before me, there is a persistent lack of gender-disaggregated data to be, seems to be, one of the major obstacles here. We need data to better understand the problem at hand and to monitor the success of our actions. But what we also need to close the gender data gap in the sense that women's perspectives are often missing and male perspectives are perceived as the norm. So norm setting is very important. Gender-disaggregated data is a prerequisite for gender-sensitive policymaking. We here highly appreciate the work of the International Energy Agency on the collection and publication of gender data. But what we also need is women in the labor market as we need specialized workers. I have three more examples what all good Germany is doing. Let me just rush through it. We have an international climate initiative where we have a gender strategy. I have already spoken about women, energize women, and we have the network where we pay for projects and my colleague from the International Labor Organization already mentioned one. So let me finish here. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this clear presentation of activities in Germany. And I think that there are good examples that can be followed up and also developed further. I have now Shekhar Satik Hedge, the partnership lead Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Young Professionals, Climate and Sustainability Task Force from India. So I would like to pass the floor now, please. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, for the introduction. I'm deeply honored to have the opportunity to represent IEEE Young Professionals. We are a global group of around 125,000 young graduates and volunteers. IEEE is a nonprofit organization and the largest professional body in the world and our motto, advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Despite progress throughout the years, women are underrepresented, especially in high-level decision-making and technical position, hindering innovation, diversity, and gender-responsive policies and programs. Obstacles in accessing education and training in energy-related fields severely limits women's involvement in the clean energy workforce. In addition to that, women are disproportionately affected by energy poverty, which also was pointed out by Dr. Birol. They lack access to reliable and affordable energy services for essential needs. And electrical engineering, and particularly in the domain that I'm working in, dielectrics and electrical insulation is a field where female representation is notably low. And I've observed this during my own PhD journey, where to date, we do not have a female candidate in the energy domain as also pointed out by Sara earlier. This observation reflects a very broader societal trend where we see more females in the domain of biology and more male representation in mechanical, electrical, and electronic domains. While efforts have been made in recent years to bridge this gap, we have yet to achieve parity. IEEE young professionals, IEEE women in engineering are actively addressing these challenges through various initiatives and programs. Women in engineering specifically focuses on promoting gender diversity and inclusion in STEM fields by offering mentorship, leadership training, networking events that are tailored to empowering women in energy-related disciplines. And IEEE as a whole advocates for gender equality and diversity in the energy sector through policy advocacy, research, collaboration with the industry partners, governments, and nonprofit organization. So to conclude, policymakers can collaborate with various stakeholders to develop gender-sensitive clean energy transition strategies that involve women organizations, academic institutions, industry partners, and community groups. It is imperative to gather diverse perspectives and insights. By integrating gender considerations into policy formulation and implementation processes, we can ensure that clean energy transition strategies are expansive in addressing the specific needs and priorities for women. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm passing the floor right away to Sreshta Banerjee, who is the Director of Just Transition in iForest. I hope I'm pronouncing the names more or less in line with your pronunciation. But excuse me for any misspelling. Sorry, please. Thank you. Thank you, Adriana. And I think many of the points have been touched upon. But at iForest, we work in a very bottom-up approach. And from our experience at working at the grassroots level and ground level through the last five years on Just Transition, I would like to highlight two important points. One is that when we take a gendered approach or a solution, we need to identify that there is a difference between women in the formal workforce and women in the informal workforce. And the approach has to be tailored, recognizing that. The second thing is also between women in urban space and rural areas. Because it determines their access to information, their ability to speak, their ability to engage. And when we design intervention measures, I think the three points I was noting down was recognizing this disparity. Number one would be that we need to understand one of the biggest important interventions will be to assess the impacts on the women due to the transition. And I think one of the most important ones will be to look at the impact on the informal women workers. Because there is really, really no data on them. It is very poorly understood. And these women are also a lot of time migrants. So it will require engagement. And here is where government can engage with think tanks, research organizations like us and many present today to generate that data. The second thing is we need a more formalized process of social dialogue and engagement. I mean, it's good to have in theory that social dialogue needs to be done, but how? How do we measure that women have participated? And more importantly, the points have been taken. I have been part of many forums where women come, but they don't speak. And whatever they speak are never part of the plans. So we need a process to ensure that their voices are heard, but also integrated and reflected. So a formalized process needs to be developed. And I think one of the mechanisms can be done is strengthening local grassroots organization to engage with them. Because external organization are maybe often not the best ways to do it. They can be the starters, but a capacity building will be required. And the third thing is I would end with a positive example is that women entrepreneurship can be important to strengthen. And in India, there is a process of developing women's self-help groups through micro-financing. And these women-led groups have been successful in many rural areas for generating employment in more sustainable economic sectors and not just fossil fuel sectors. And that can be something when we look at the economic diversification process and strengthening women's livelihood, but also better employment opportunities. I'll stop to that. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have three more speakers here and I have a few flags raised. So I'll ask Canada Ambassador to come in, please. Thank you very much for giving me the floor. Gender equality is a key priority for Canada, ensuring a woman's political, economic and social equality is imperative to building a prosperous, inclusive and sustainable society. But clearly listening to all of us, we still know that there is huge gaps in this planet and this is so important to close in order to get to the economic growth for all. Empowering and increasing that representation of women in the energy sector is essential in the transformation to a low-carbon future. And I will not repeat the numbers that was mentioned by Mrs. Drake from ILO, but clearly we know that we have a long way to go. To tackle this challenge, the Government of Canada chairs the Equality in Energy Transitions Initiative, a joint initiative of Clean Energy Ministerial and the International Energy Agency working to advance gender equality in clean energy globally. Under the Equality Initiative, Canada leads the Equal by 30 campaign, an international effort asking the public and private sector to work towards equal pay, equal leadership, and equal opportunities for women in all marginalized groups in the energy sector by 2030. Some of us, as asked around the table, the importance of the indicators, that initiatives really help to track progress at multiple levels. So I invited you to consider this initiative and as my colleague from Germany mentioned, desegrated data is so important to get in order to pursue our journey. Since its launch over five years ago, the campaign has reached over 200 signatories worldwide, including many represented here today, with a global signatory base that spends multiple areas of the energy sector. The campaign recently released a self-assessment tool to help organizations evaluate their progress on implementing inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility practices and policies on the road to 2030. We are keen to continue this work with our international partners and to increase our ambition using the Equality Initiative, the Equal by 30 campaign, and IE-led efforts as platforms to advance our joint objectives. Let me also add another point that we were talking about all these gaps around the planet, but yesterday had the chance to have a see different reports regarding the young generation and I'm glad that the young professionals are at the table and in that study from North American European, there is a backlash regarding the young people who are going back to very traditional social norms. So this is, and that leads also to look about not only the energy sector, but the image that we have on the digital platform is pretty bad and the violence that is there. So we've got to watch out that backlash also in some part of this world. I encourage any governments and organizations here to get involved in these important initiatives. If you haven't already done so and demonstrate your commitment to building a more equitable and inclusive energy future as lead for the Equal by 30 campaign, Canada is here to provide information to anyone who may be interested in joining. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador. I pass the floor now to Yuan Zheng, who is the regional focal point Asia for SDG7. Please. Thank you, sex madam, for giving the floor of our youth and young professional with an intergenerational dialogue in shaping a more inclusive future leadership in the energy sectors. The need for a more gender inclusive energy transition is crystal clear and we reiterate the bottom up process that helps the key to securing our planet future strategically. In addition to put the economic, political, and technology capitals at the centers of the energy transitions, we should never estimate the power to identify and invest in the social innovation and local community. And to see how the energy innovation locally and society can trigger a tipping effect to accelerate the energy transition process. So one exemplary initiative that we identified through our youth constituency is the bottom up approaches in Waga, which operate in Tanzania, bringing the electricity to homes and business by recycling the lithium batteries. Not only does them contribute to the hiring the sustainable energy solution, but it also addressed the local employment challenges by hiring male and women from the local community. So this dual impact highlights the transformative powers of the grassroots initiatives led by women, but these solutions are not well represented. We recognize that there remains a wealth of untapped nature based solutions embedded in the indigenous knowledges across our planet, which have the potential to catalyze significant social tipping point in our energy transition process. But, and there are huge potential of local value created by the women, children, and indigenous community. Mailing young women professionals have already developed a scalable like solutions utilizing AI and imperative that their journey to be documented and integrated in our database before conducting any analysis and scaling up energy transition and solutions and investment is really important. So we emphasized the importance of the international leading energy related agency like IEA and Syntax like civil society to provide observers like our use which is the most sensitive like observers of all those local solutions and also to its crucial that those entities offer collective data and also provide technical tools that enable us to visualize and map these micro solutions for every communities and regions while safeguarding the labor rights. Additionally, there is a pressure need to adopt a gender inclusive lens through the data collection process in ensuring that women are not merely tokenistically included in the paperwork, but actively involved in identifying the barriers in the energy transition process, shaping framework and providing solutions. As the first, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for your thoughts. I don't want to finish and close the session before giving the floor to a man. So I'm sorry. Women can speak a lot as you know, but we have also a request from Mr. Andy Deacon who is the Co-managing Director of Global Covenant of MERS and I want to ask him for three minutes to share his views. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chair. It was a brave middle-aged white man who asked to speak in the middle of this session. So let's see how this goes. And just a few points that I wanted to make to support the intervention of Mayor Baswaldo just to say that data and research, as others have highlighted during this session, are tremendously important. The Global Covenant has worked to produce a global research and action agenda on cities and climate science as part of our Innovate for Cities program. And later this year, we will convene a scientific panel and a group of experts in Montreal, Canada in September to review and revisit that framework and which has equity and justice dimension at its heart. And we would welcome additional contributions towards that activity, but also through the work of the IEA's People-Centred Transition Commission and opportunity alongside that Innovate for Cities program and for the IEA's work to help feed into the special report on cities that will be the only special report in the seventh assessment cycle of the IPCC. It really is a landmark moment for subnational leaders and a key opportunity to highlight that urban dimension to this activity. My second point I also wanted to emphasize that it's important that we recognize the implications and gender implications of not delivering a smooth, equitable, and rapid energy transition. And we've seen local leaders and local women leaders on the front lines of the impacts of climate change in cities. And some of the work that, for example, Mayor Yvonne Akisoya has led in Freetown to provide shading for market traders has been in particularly valuable in protecting then female traders who make up a large part of the workforce in that environment. There are many other examples that we could bring from the local level to the table and Mayor Bazwaldo spoke very eloquently about work in Despeñaderos and elsewhere, and there is much that we can do to highlight these examples, but we need to be clear that we must deliver an equitable transition rapidly in order to avert the increasingly severe aspects and dimensions of climate impacts. Finally, I would just say multilevel governance is important and at COP28, a new initiative led by the COP28 presidency, the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships was endorsed by 72 Paris Agreement negotiating parties. That provides a clear way for national governments to engage effectively with sub-national actors at all levels and across the whole of society, and we very much welcome those who want to continue to engage on those issues and to bring forward the voices of women local leaders and through initiatives such as that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I want to thank everyone for this very fruitful, very rich discussion. Of course, it was enlightening. I believe that some of the experience and examples shared will raise additional questions and also the possibility for bilateral exchanges. Trying to sum up is not gonna be easy, but I'll try. First, I've noted down that data is becoming a vital starting point for any policy and any decision-making process. It will be about employment of women, it will be about pay, about skills levels and so on. So gender-sensitive policy is based on data and that's one of the main actions that we have to undertake. We have to fight discrimination of any aspect and this was mentioned by a few of the colleagues. We have to go forward and ensure that women get decent work and decent pay and equal pay for the same type of work. We have to ensure that economic, social and political involvement, inclusive policy-making but also measures securing the long-term women employment and the implementation of all measures at all levels are some of the lessons for the future. Access to financing was one of the issues and I thank IDB for sharing what the experience is in this area, empowering women and ensuring their participation in social dialogue. And by this, I want to complete this session. Thank you very much. I'll pass the floor to Jane for some internal housekeeping messages now but thanks a lot for your active participation and also we'll keep continuing working jointly. Thank you.