OfD meeting with ENERGIA on March 25

Thursday March 25th Norad's Energy Department and its partners in Norway (public and private) met with representatives from the international network ENERGIA to discuss challenges related to womens rights and gender equality in development cooperation within the energy sector (including petroleum).

Women´s rights and gender equality is a strategic priority area in Norwegian foreign policy. There are several political statements on how to follow up the priority including parliamentary propositions and the Action Plan for Womens Rights and Gender Equality in development Cooperation 2007-2009.

However studies show that Norway can do more to integrate women´s rights and equality in energy related development cooperation. Norad´s Energy Department is therefore in a process of identifying strategic and results oriented actions that will strengthen the work on women´s rights and gender equality in activities, projects and programmes within the two initiatives – Clean Energy for Development and Oil for Development.

The meeting with ENERGIA was meant to inform Norad on the work of the network and to guide the way forward. ENERGIA started up in 1996 and works with energy, women´s rights and gender equality. The network works with local partners in Asia and Africa and has experience from development cooperation within both clean energy and petroleum.