Advancing Gender Equality for a Just Energy Transition – Powering Prosperity, Security and Stability, Leaving Nobody Behind

Preamble and Shared Purpose

We, the undersigned, reaffirm our collective conviction that a just, inclusive, secure, and sustainable energy transition cannot be achieved without the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women. Building on the momentum of the Vienna Energy Forum 2021 Call to Action and five years of implementation under the UN-Energy Gender & Energy Compact, we commit to accelerating transformative action between 2026 and 2030 while helping shape a post-2030 global framework that places gender equality at the heart of global energy, industry and climate governance.

Reaffirming that energy systems are not gender neutral. Decisions about infrastructure, finance, innovation, technology deployment, market design, and workforce development influence who benefits from the energy transition and who is left behind.

Recognizing that we are at a time of profound structural change, insecurity and instability that gives us a historic opportunity to redesign policies and institutions, so that they expand women’s rights, agency, leadership, and economic empowerment. Furthermore, just energy transitions are central to building more equitable, inclusive, and resilient societies.

Vision

We call for the establishment of a forward-looking framework to accelerate implementation, mobilize resources, strengthen strategic partnerships, and galvanize sustained political will for a just energy transition that empowers women across the entire energy ecosystem.

We commit to advancing gender equality across the entire energy value chain through our respective mandates and spheres of influence, We will work to ensure women have equal opportunities to lead, participate in, and benefit from energy transitions in public institutions, private companies, financial systems, research bodies, and communities.

By endorsing this Call to Action, we affirm that gender equality is a central condition for a resilient, inclusive, and prosperous energy future. Together, we will mobilize resources, partnerships, and political will to advance women’s leadership, rights, and economic empowerment across the energy ecosystem and to shape a gender-transformative post-2030 energy agenda that creates prosperity, security and stability leaving no one behind.

Actions

Actions for Accelerating the elimination of women’s energy poverty

• We commit to accelerating the elimination of women’s energy poverty by promoting women’s access to and control over sustainable energy services, ensuring affordability, reliability, and productive use.
• We recognize the central role of grassroots women’s organizations, cooperatives, and community networks in advancing inclusive energy transitions. Supporting women’s collective agency at the community level is essential to ensure that women participate meaningfully in decision-making and help shape energy solutions that respond to local needs and priorities.

Actions for Transforming Skills, Workforce, and Digital Inclusion

• We recognize that the energy transition will reshape labour markets at an unprecedented scale. We therefore commit to building gender-responsive skills ecosystems that align education and training systems, close skills and education gaps, and advancing gender-responsive policies, financing mechanisms, and investment strategies.
• We aim to strengthen partnerships among technical and vocational institutions, universities, industry, and professional networks to create inclusive pathways into technical and leadership roles.
• We promote mentorship, sponsorship, and re-skilling programs for mid-career women and actively encourage girls and young women to pursue careers in STEM fields relevant to energy and seize employment opportunities offered by the energy sector. Closing the gender digital divide is central to this effort. We will advance equal access to connectivity, devices, digital safety, and advanced technical training in fields such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, grid management, and the Internet of Things, ensuring that women are not excluded from emerging energy technologies and digitalized systems. We seek to redress the current bias in algorithms which mirrors the current uneven playing field.
• We further commit to expanding women’s enterprise ownership, asset ownership, and access to capital within sustainable energy and green industry sectors. Structural barriers, including limited collateral, guarantee constraints, and gender bias in investment decision-making, must be addressed through inter alia patient capital, de-risking instruments, tailored acceleration, and market access initiatives.

Actions for Leadership, Safe Workplaces, and Institutional Change

• Within our institutions, we commit to embedding gender equality into governance and management structures. We will adopt transparent recruitment and promotion systems, conduct pay-equity audits and set measurable targets to increase women’s representation in decision-making roles, including boards, senior management, regulatory bodies, and investment committees.
• We will foster safe and inclusive workplaces through comprehensive anti-harassment policies with zero tolerance for violence against women, flexible work arrangements, parental leave provisions, and care-support mechanisms. We recognize that discriminatory social norms continue to constrain women’s economic participation and undervalue care work. We will therefore support efforts to shift norms and create organizational cultures that promote dignity, fairness, and equal opportunity.

Actions for Policy, Finance, and Market Transformation

• We acknowledge that transformative change requires alignment across policy, regulation, finance and business practice in general. Governments and regulators commit to integrating gender analysis, targets, and budgeting into national energy plans and regulatory frameworks and to advancing gender-responsive procurement policies.
• Development finance institutions, multilateral development banks, and donors commit to strengthening gender-lens investing, expanding guarantee windows and blended finance mechanisms for women-led firms, and embedding robust gender strategies and results frameworks into energy operations. Private sector actors and utilities commit to advancing supplier diversity, investing in female leadership pipelines, and reporting transparently on progress toward gender parity.
• Through our accelerators, incubators, academic institutions, civil society organizations, youth networks, and regional and international organizations we commit to aligning programs, research, advocacy, and cooperation mechanisms with the objectives of this Call to Action.

Actions on Energy to Foster Inclusive Green Industrialization

• We affirm that energy transitions must serve as a catalyst for inclusive green industrialization. By embedding gender equality into industrial transformation, we will ensure that women participate fully and take leadership in shaping sustainable manufacturing, supply chains, innovation, and emerging green industries. We commit to advancing women’s entrepreneurship and access to capital in sustainable energy development, manufacturing, sustainable materials, and energy-efficient technologies. We will align industrial and energy policies to create decent work, fair wages, and safe workplaces for women, while promoting digital inclusion and advanced technical training so that women can seize opportunities in Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing.

Actions for Data, Evidence, and Accountability

• We recognize that meaningful change requires measurable results. We therefore commit to systematically generating and using sex- and gender-disaggregated data across energy programs, projects, and investments, to inform and strengthen national policies, guide decision-making and ensure accountability in implementing inclusive energy transitions. We will publish regular progress reports, produce learning products, and highlight the business case for gender equality in the energy sector.
• We call for integration of gender-responsive targets, indicators, and financing mechanisms into national energy plans, future global compacts, nationally determined contributions (NDCs), long-term low-emissions development strategies (LT-LEDS), and industrial policies and transformation roadmaps, climate finance frameworks such as Multilateral Climate Funds, and corporate Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) reporting, while ensuring robust monitoring and accountability systems aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs).

A Call for a Gender-Responsive Post-2030 Framework

As 2030 approaches, we recognize that sustainable energy and gender equality must remain central to global energy and climate governance beyond current development timelines. We therefore call for a strengthened and explicit focus on gender equality in the post-2030 development framework, including future energy, climate, and green industrial strategies.

Future frameworks must go beyond access metrics and incorporate targets related to leadership, decent work, enterprise ownership, digital inclusion, access to capital and equal opportunities to participate in and take leadership of emerging green industries. They must address structural discrimination, recognize the informal sector as well as unpaid and care work, and ensure that global and national financing architectures reward inclusive and gender-responsive approaches.

Signatories of this Call to Action shall communicate their organisation-specific commitments to foster gender equality in the energy sector for the period 2026–2030. Annual open dialogues will review progress (as per UN Energy Reporting Framework), catalyze renewed political leadership, and foster peer learning and South–South knowledge exchange and cooperation. In doing so, we will transform the Gender and Energy Compact into a dynamic engine for accelerating a just energy transition, energy security, accountability, innovation, and shared prosperity.