Giving Compass' Take:

• Christina Kwauk and Amanda Braga explain the importance of including women in the green economy by creating early ed opportunities for girls. 

• where are women and girls facing the greatest challenges to their education and career prospects? What does early ed look like in your community? 

• Learn about funding gender equality. 

Today, women hold only 20-24 percent of jobs in the renewable energy sector. While organizations like the International Labor Organization (ILO) have attempted to shine a light on the need for gender equality in green sector jobs, such actors have not taken sufficient steps to imagine possibilities for women in the green economy outside of the domestic sectors to which they have long been confined. For example, a number of organizations have focused on including women in the adoption of clean cookstoves and solar lamps, which has created important opportunities for women to become entrepreneurs and earn income (and social status) in their communities.

But these efforts on a whole focus on retrofitting the current set of skills that women have to green economy efforts and fail to point out new spaces where they can and should be included. In short, business as usual will continue to place girls and women at the margins of the green economy.

In our report, Three Platforms for Girls' Education in Climate Strategies, we argue that efforts to ensure women reap the benefits of the green economy must come earlier in women’s lives as increased investment in their quality education as girls. This is the first step to ensure that girls will develop the breadth of skills — including green skills — necessary to participate in the green economy as they become women rather than after.

Actors like the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) can play a key role in these efforts by collaborating with girls’ education actors like the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) to connect girls to green-sector training opportunities and green skills development through tailored girls’ education and girls in STEM programming.

Read the full article about generating opportunities for women in the green economy by Christina Kwauk and Amanda Braga at Brookings.