ABUJA, Nigeria — What do you want to be when you grow up? This is a question everyone asks, but so often the answer is dictated by cultural expectations or limitations due to economic status.

In Africa, young girls’ answers to this question are beginning to change. A program developed by the United States Agency for International Development is determined to encourage and enable the employment of more women in the energy sector.

Because companies in the energy industry are often the largest employers of an entire country, increasing the number of females contributing to this industry will help the economies and development of African nations.

USAID’s Engendering Utility Program is “aiming to increase women’s professional participation in the energy distribution sector and expand women’s career options while improving the quality and cost of electricity services”.

Research for this program seeks to understand the lack of women in the energy sector, and will be used to broaden opportunities for females and promote gender diversification as a way to improve business.

The gender gap in the energy sector is not a problem that affects only the continent of Africa. The Guardian reports that currently, only four percent of executive board members at the 100 most successful utilities companies are women. Allison Kay notes that this is not only a gender issue, it’s a business issue.

The importance of energy boards being representative of society cannot be understated. There are new innovations to be made constantly and diversifying the minds that innovate can only serve to help the industry and the economy by extension.

Men account for 90 percent of executive directors, but USAID’s program has the potential to change that statistic. The Engendering Partnering Utility program will begin in Jordan, Georgia, Macedonia, Nigeria and Kenya.

One of the program’s core methods to involve more women in the energy sector is to enable children to learn about what it means to work in this field. The ‘Bring You Daughter to Work Day‘ in Macedonia brought 66 young girls to the EVN Macedonia Energy Company in June this year.

The event took place at three different locations, all with the goal of teaching the girls about the energy sector and encouraging them to think imaginatively about their career paths.

Vice President of the EVN Board of Directors Harold Dammerer told the girls, “We want to show you in an interesting way what your parents do every day, so by the end of the day, maybe you’ll have new ideas of what you want to be when you grow up.”

Their day at work included learning about the history of electricity and how it is created today and an experiment in which the girls created electricity from potatoes and built windmills from everyday objects such as paper cups and pizza boxes. “What I learned today was that one kilowatt hour equals 11 ironed shirts,” said Matea Karpouzos, smiling as she enjoyed her day and newfound knowledge.

Bring Your Daughter to Work Day also happened in Nigeria, Jordan and Kenya. Plans for next year are to expand it to all of the company’s 22 different branches.

Programs like this are the first stepping stones for the Engendering Utilities Program to achieve its goal of expanding women’s career options, with a focus on women in the energy sector. These benefits will go beyond one company or one continent and positively affect the rest of the world, whose future depends on the success of the energy sector.

– Rebecca Causey

Photo: Flickr