Phase 3 was a transforming and evolving period. ENERGIA built upon the achievements of the previous Phase in terms of collaborating with different partners, participating in events and offering advocacy support. We focused on three strategic areas: capacity building, research and analysis, and advocacy and advice. These activities aimed at strengthening advocacy skills, building an evidence base for a more gender-responsive energy sector by generating and disseminating knowledge products, and ensuring that gender and energy issues were taken up at international conferences and meetings.

The Network started to work more closely with governments by engaging with ministries and agencies at national levels to shape advocacy messages. In this phase the primary beneficiaries of training and capacity building projects were mainly practitioners, government employees and energy utilities. As part of the Turning Information Into Empowerment (TIE-ENERGIA) project, in addition to training of policymakers and practitioners in gender and energy, ENERGIA developed a methodology for gender audits, which aimed directly at policy influencing whereas ENERGIA’s other activities aimed at projects (although also projects provided useful evidence for policy influencing). Gender audits, primarily in Africa in this phase, played a key role also in the following Phase (Phase 4) and became a key tool in mainstreaming gender in the energy sector.

By developing a gender and energy training program, ENERGIA supported and strengthened the capacity to integrate gender and energy into policies and programs of government institutions, NGOs, knowledge institutions, multi- and bi-lateral donors and private companies engaged in sustainable development.

In parallel, ENERGIA carried out further studies to provide evidence on gender and energy. With the support of the Department for International Development (DFID), ENERGIA undertook a Knowledge and Research (KAR) program that aimed to develop a policy-credible analytical framework for research on gender, energy and poverty.