Region: Worldwide
Office: Hivos Hub Global Office, The Hague (or remote from any other place in the world)
Application deadline: January 15, 2022

About ENERGIA

ENERGIA works to establish a future in which “women and men have equal and equitable access to and control over sustainable energy services as an essential right to development.” The network does this by supporting women-led micro and small energy service businesses, providing technical support to energy policies and programs, advocating for gender equality and energy investment through evidence-based research, and by raising awareness of issues related to energy and gender. The ENERGIA Network is hosted by Hivos. 

About Hivos

Hivos is an international development organization guided by humanist values. Together with citizens and their organizations, we aim to contribute towards just, inclusive and life sustaining societies where people have equal access to opportunities, rights and resources. We work in partnership with others in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America on three impact areas: civic rights; gender equality, diversity and inclusion, and climate justice. Our approach is solution driven, and we build wider movements for change by amplifying and connecting voices.

Your profile

• Enrolled in a master’s, postmaster’s or doctorate program
• Demonstrate awareness and sensitivity regarding gender issues
• Comfortable with independent international travel to developing countries.
• Strong written and oral communications skills in English.
• Functional Competencies: Self-starter and organized, ability to multitask and balance multiple responsibilities, comfortable working virtually and in a team

What we offer

An inspirational work environment in a value-driven international organization with dedicated staff and a great team to work with. The duration of the assignments are between 3 and 6 months. You will receive an intern allowance of € 400 per month.

How to apply

Please apply before January 15, 2022. You need to submit a letter of motivation, resume and a writing sample in English of a publication, research paper, article or assignment on a relevant topic to Hivos.

APPLY HERE

For more information, you can contact us via the email address energia@hivos.org.

The assignments

1. Women’s Economic Empowerment Strategy

The selected intern will work on a specific assignment related to documenting, consolidating, and analysing the impacts of all the tools that women entrepreneurs within the ENERGIA network and ENERGIA’s implementing partners in Africa and Asia have used to foster and support business development, financing and growth, with a special eye on women entrepreneurship. The intern would be based in The Hague, Netherlands at ENERGIA headquarters, but may be expected to travel, provided COVID guidelines permit this.

Your responsibilities

• Interview implementing partners as well as sample of women entrepreneurs supported by ENERGIA
• Categorize and describe tools and strategies used in micro and small business development by ENERGIA’s implementing partners, to foster and support women entrepreneurship in clean energy.
• Lead the production of an analysis report that:

1 – Captures the types of tools and strategies that have been used by (i) women entrepreneurs and (ii) ENERGIA’s implementing partners, and;

2 – Measures and compares the impacts those strategies and tools have had on women-owned businesses and the local ecosystem;

3 – Identifies lessons learnt, best practices and recommendations, especially in view of upscaling and replications.

Your profile (specific for this assignment)

• A strong background in business training, economics, statistics and/or anthropology, sociology, gender studies, international development.
• Fluency in French would be an additional asset.

2. Kenya Gender in Energy Policy

ENERGIA has recently partnered with the Kenyan government to develop a Gender Policy in Energy. This assignment will focus on documenting the process by which this policy was developed, what the challenges and success of this process were, and what the expected outcomes will be. These finding will then be packaged in a report or ‘guide’ that can help to inform other countries that might be interesting in trying to replicate the planning process that Kenya undertook. The intern would be based in the Hague, Netherlands at ENERGIA headquarters, but may be expected to travel to Kenya, provided COVID guidelines permit travel.

Your responsibilities

• Document the steps taken to develop the Kenya action plan
• Identify the key challenges and successes
• Characterize the expected outcomes of this process
• Package these finding into an informative report for other partner countries to reference.

Your profile (specific for this assignment)

• A strong background in social studies, economics, political science and or international development

3. Communication and awareness raising

This assignment will involve developing, planning and implementing a communication and awareness raising campaign, based on research and storytelling. The objective, topic, angle and target group(s) will be defined in coordination and with guidance of the Communication Coordinator. Activities will include research, collecting anecdotes, personal stories, and community feedback about projects or business that ENERGIA has helped support as well as asset development.

These insights would then be woven into inspirational or cautionary stories about the successes and challenges that women entrepreneurs and other international partners have faced. These stories, which form the basis for the campaign and are intended to highlight the achievements of ENERGIA, should draw on the experiences of individuals but also contextualize them using the best available research, science, and international consensus on issues related to energy, climate change, gender, or development.

Your responsibilities

• Develop communication and awareness raising campaign strategy and implementation plan
• Develop story lines, conduct interviews with international partners, entrepreneurs, and other community members.
• Visual material gathering
• Skilfully construct narratives to tell valuable and insightful stories about ENERGIA
• Asset development
• Implementation of the campaign

Your profile (specific for this assignment)

• A strong background in communications and/or journalism, preferably in combination with energy science and/or international development.
• Familiarity with/knowledge of working with designer programs and/or video-editing programs is an asset
• Social-media savvy

4. Gender and Energy Compact

A coalition, initiated by ENERGIA, Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and supported by the Governments of  Iceland, Ecuador, Nepal, Kenya, USA/Power Africa and Sweden/Sida launched a Gender and Energy Compact at the UN High Level Dialogue on Energy on 22 September 2021. The Compact aims to catalyse action towards gender equality and women’s empowerment to accelerate a just, inclusive and sustainable energy transition.

The coalition brings together governments, private sector, academia, civil society, youth, and international organizations—all under the same overall objective: To promote a just and inclusive, and gender responsive energy transition. The undersigning parties commit to supporting and accelerating action for two main goals.
First, that women have equal opportunity to lead, participate in and benefit from a just, sustainable and inclusive energy transition.
Second, that women have equal access to and control over sustainable energy products and services. Reaching these goals requires actions at multiple levels from a wide range of stakeholders. In the months to follow, all signatories will submit their own individual Energy Compacts to capture their organization’s specific commitments between now and 2030, to support the to support the achievement of SDG7 on universal access to sustainable energy and SDG5 on gender equality.

Moving forward, ENERGIA and its organizing partners need to support the coalition in framing their individual commitment and to develop a framework for monitoring and reporting on the commitments.

Your responsibilities

• Review all commitment made at the HLDE to assess which one include gender commitments
• Rank the commitment in terms of being gender neutral, gender aware, gender responsive and/or gender transformative
• Map out the individual commitment made under the Gender and Energy Compact and link them to specific goals and outcomes.
• Propose a framework and process for monitoring the commitments

Your profile (specific for this assignment)

• A strong background in social studies, economics, political science and or international development