90
Women from different countries, supported during 2021 and 2022
179
Women supported in total by the end of the 2023 programme.
Context
Increasing access to clean cooking is a critical and immediate solution to achieving gender equality, addressing climate change, and improving women’s health and safety.
Women play a critical role in increasing awareness and generating demand for clean cooking solutions, partly as a result of their networks and community relationships. The clean cooking value chain also offers new pathways for women’s economic empowerment, providing opportunities for women entrepreneurs to contribute to a thriving global industry for clean cooking.
Since 2021, SEforALL, the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) and the Global Women’s Network for Energy Transition (GWNET) have collaborated on a programme that supports women to build thriving careers in the clean cooking sector through mentorship.
The Women in Clean Cooking (WiCC) mentorship programme provides mentorship and professional development for women in early and mid-management positions, entrepreneurs, and others working in the clean cooking ecosystem.
Objectives
Support professional development
Through mentorship, women in the programme learn valuable skills and gain contacts to help them in their clean cooking careers.
Strengthen the clean cooking sector
Building a strong, diverse clean cooking workforce will help speed up the development of the sector and clean cooking access globally.
Activities
The programme focuses on helping mentees with the following:
- Developing leadership skills and increasing confidence
- Expanding professional networks and opening doors to new opportunities
- Accessing clean cooking sector knowledge and resources
- Joining a powerful, women-led clean cooking community and
- Having the opportunity to become mentors, creating a powerful ripple effect of women supporting women in the clean cooking ecosystem
Participants are assigned a mentor who, over the course of nine months of virtual interaction, provide support toward achieving mutually agreed upon professional development targets and goals. Alongside monthly mentee-mentor meetings, participants also receive exclusive access to curated knowledge transfer webinars and virtual networking sessions.
Results
Since the inaugural cohort in 2021, SEforALL has supported 90 women (30 in 2021, 60 in 2022) in the clean cooking sector through the WiCC programme. In 2023, SEforALL, CCA and GWNET aim to increase the third cohort to 90 women. In 2022, SEforALL sponsored several WiCC mentees to attend the SEforALL Forum in Rwanda and the Clean Cooking Forum in Ghana. The first in-person networking session for WiCC mentees was held on the last day of the Clean Cooking Forum. A few of the mentees were chosen to speak during the event.
