Tajikistan – On 28 February 2025, the first roundtable dedicated to the topic of women’s participation in the energy sector of Tajikistan took place in the city of Khujand. It will be followed by similar discussions in the cities of Boktar, Jalolidini Rumi, Kulob, Norak, Yovon, and Tursunzoda on 3-5 March 2025.

Despite the Government and development partners’ significant efforts, there are still challenges in attracting girls in education in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) disciplines in Tajikistan and, therefore, a substantial gender gap in the number of male and female students in this fields of study.

During the European Union – Tajikistan Sustainable Energy Days campaign in 2024, it was found out that only 9 out of approximately 1000 students of the Institute of Energy of Tajikistan (IET), the only specialised institute in the country, are girls. Then, the IET proposed to hold a series of events in the country’s regions to raise awareness among the high school female students about education in STEM and inspire them to pursue career in the energy sector.

The high-level officials of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Tajikistan, honoured female energy professionals of Tajikistan, IET management staff, representatives of regional executive bodies, education departments, and public schools, experts of the European Union (EU) funded SECCA project, as well as main target audience – high school and IET female students and their parents – are taking part in these events.

The participants discuss the EU’s experience in promoting women’s involvement in the energy sector, explored the relevant success stories of the Tajik women, reviewed the Government’s initiatives to support girl’s education and women’s career in energy and STEM.

These roundtables aim to raise awareness of the girls and their parents about the higher education and existing employment opportunities in the energy sector, with an ultimate goal of increasing the number of girls pursuing the STEM and energy studies and career.

Mary, Turkmenistan – A training workshop on “The Role of Sustainable Energy in Environmental Protection: Studying the Features of Renewable Energy Development in Turkmenistan’s Climatic Conditions” was jointly organised by the European Union (EU) funded project “Sustainable Energy Connectivity in Central Asia” (SECCA) and the UNDP project “Sustainable Cities in Turkmenistan: Integrated Development of Green Cities in Ashgabat and Awaza” in Mary from 10 to 28 February 2025.

The seminar was held in a hybrid format and brought together specialists from the Ministry of Energy, faculty members and students from the State Energy Institute of Turkmenistan (SEIT), experts from the SEIT-based Scientific and Production Center “Renewable Energy Sources” as well as experts and international consultants of the EU’s SECCA project and the UNDP’s sustainable cities project.

Participants explored opportunities for renewable energy development considering Turkmenistan’s climatic conditions, international experience in regulatory frameworks, best practices in renewable energy utilisation, and EU countries’ experience in implementing renewable energy technologies in public buildings and the residential sector.

International consultants provided insights into the selection and maintenance of solar power plant equipment for operation in regions with high levels of airborne mechanical impurities (such as sand).

Seminar attendees also studied the technical operation of Turkmenistan’s new hybrid solar-wind power plant, installed on the shores of Altyn Asyr Lake, and discussed its expected performance and benefits. This power plant is the first in Turkmenistan to generate clean electricity solely from solar and wind energy, without greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of the training seminar, participants visited the production facilities of the Scientific and Production Center “Renewable Energy Sources,” enhancing their practical skills in designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating clean energy generation systems.

The seminar also included a presentation on the development of the regulatory and legislative framework for renewable energy in Turkmenistan, covering the adopted “Law on Renewable Energy Sources” and the “Law on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving”. The UNDP project presented on the National Strategy for Renewable Energy Development in Turkmenistan until 2030, developed with the UNDP support and approved by a Presidential Decree.

This training workshop marked another step toward strengthening the capacity of SEIT faculty in preparing young specialists for Turkmenistan’s power sector.

Mr Paata Janelidze, SECCA Team Leader and Key Expert, noted: “Energy efficiency and renewable energy play a key role in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. The topics covered in the workshop are particularly relevant for Turkmenistan in addressing climate change challenges and achieving climate goals. They also contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The participation of women in this seminar is especially valuable in the context of SDG 5 “Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls”.

Online – The Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tajikistan and the European Union (EU) funded SECCA project held an online seminar “Opportunities for Tajikistan’s Participation in Horizon Europe: Potential for International Cooperation”. The event was attended by representatives of the Ministry and higher educational institutions of Tajikistan.

Although Tajikistan is eligible to participate in the programme as a third country, the involvement of its research organisations has been limited so far. This online seminar was specifically designed to provide both general and practical insights into Horizon Europe’s participation framework and to explore opportunities for strengthening international research collaboration with the EU.

Along with the SECCA project experts, the Horizon Europe Cluster 5 National Contact Point (NCP) in Kazakhstan shared Kazakhstan’s experience in participating in the programme and provided insights into the country’s NCP network.

As the first event in Tajikistan dedicated to promoting the Horizon Europe programme, the seminar raised awareness among participants about the programme and the opportunities it offers to researchers and scientists from Tajikistan.

Background:

Horizon Europe is the European Union’s flagship research and innovation program with an ambitious budget of EUR 95.5 billion. One of its key strengths is its comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach, fostering collaboration across various sectors and disciplines. Participation in Horizon Europe not only provides funding but also enhances international networking opportunities, tackling global challenges such as climate change, the green transition, and digital transformation.

Tashkent, Uzbekistan – On 18-19 February 2025, SECCA project key experts Paata Janelidze and Ilze Purina took part in the Central Asia Local Hub Forum of the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA). The event brought together the representatives of governments of the Central Asian countries, project preparation facilities, international financial institutions (IFIs), and the representatives of the European Union and its Member States.

The CCFLA Local Hubs Program was launched in 2023 to leverage its global network of members and climate finance expertise in addressing urban climate investment challenges in various countries. The Central Asia Local Hub was established the same year and focuses on coordinating building decarbonisation efforts in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with an emphasis on project preparation.

At the panel discussion on the challenges and opportunities of building decarbonisation in Central Asia, the SECCA project experts explored actionable strategies with partners and experts and shared the European Union’s experience in developing and implementing buildings energy efficiency policies.

The event raised awareness of the buildings’ decarbonisation agenda in the region, collaboratively defined a roadmap to advance this agenda and project preparation efforts, as well as reflected on key milestones and lessons learned from implementing the regional Local Hub over the past two years.

Turkestan, Kazakhstan – The representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the experts of the European Union funded SECCA project visited the city of Turkestan on 11 February 2025. As part of this visit, they presented the Energy Efficiency Certificates to 26 public schools built in the Turkestan region in 2023–2024, and delivered an educational lecture on energy efficiency of buildings for the school principals and the representatives of Departments of Education of the Turkestan city and region.

Kazakhstan prioritises energy conservation and saving, introduction of relevant regulatory requirements, and reduction of the energy intensity of buildings by 15% by 2029. The Government considers the use of buildings energy efficiency labelling as one of the most effective solutions to increase transparency in energy consumption and encourage the implementation of energy-efficient technologies, particularly in the public sector, which currently accounts for 8% of total energy consumption. For this, the legislative framework has already been established in Kazakhstan, including approved regulations for determining energy efficiency rating and a building labelling system that meets the European standards.

The Ministry of Industry and Construction, in collaboration with the SECCA project, has been systematically working to promote energy efficiency in the country’s educational institutions and a more widespread use of energy efficiency labelling. As part of this work, in 2024, the parties initiated an energy efficiency analysis of 100 new public school in Kazakhstan and organised a series of regional training sessions for representatives of government bodies and educational institutions in the cities of Shymkent, Turkestan, and Aktau.

The visit to Turkestan and the activities it involved raised the awareness of the participants about Kazakhstan’s and the EU’s energy efficiency policy and showcased successful sustainable energy solutions for public buildings.

On 11 February, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the SECCA team looks at the current status and trends about women’s engagement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Central Asia, and how this links to the energy sector and energy transition in the Region.  

In 2024, the European Union funded SECCA project undertook a series of national gender assessments in Central Asia, with a dedicated section investigating gender issues in the energy sector. The studies were presented and discussed during a regional conference that took place in Almaty (Kazakhstan) in October 2024. One of the topics investigated in this research included the distribution of girls and boys in fields of education related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as being the fields most directly related to and applicable in the energy sector.

In this conversation, SECCA Communications Expert Ms Nurgul Smagulova-Dulic and SECCA Gender Specialist Ms Silvia Sartori discuss the nexus of STEM and gender in the energy sector, in the light of this recent research.

Nurgul: What were some of the main findings from the studies you coordinated?

Silvia: The broader regional picture is quite aligned to international trends. First of all, we were confronted with a lack of accurate and updated gender-disaggregated data about the participation of boys and girls in STEM education. While the extent of this gap varied from country to country, it confirmed that, both globally and regionally, gender-disaggregated data are still not systematically captured, including in the different dimensions of the energy sector.

Secondly, the data that we were able to find indicate that, also in Central Asia, STEM studies remain predominantly male-dominated, to a different extent depending on the country and the quantity and accuracy of data available. In Kazakhstan, women account for up to 32 percent of STEM graduates. Similarly, in Kyrgyzstan, they account for 31.3 percent. For Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, we could not find any recent data. The latest we could find about Tajikistan, namely  about secondary vocational education from the 2013-2014 academic year, that technical fields in Tajikistan are essentially pursued by men only. In 2014, Turkmenistan launched a new training programme on “Non-traditional and renewable energy sources”: one quarter of its graduates are women. Uzbekistan is particularly promising: according to the Statistics Agency, the percentage of women graduating from STEM programs in higher education is steadily increasing, growing from 32.6 percent in 2017 to 40.2 percent in 2021.

Nurgul: What are the reasons for this imbalance­?

Silvia: In general, there is still little awareness about the importance of STEM, and the empowerment and employment potential that these sectors can offer. This is particularly the case when referring to the opportunities that STEM can provide to girls. The general perception is that these fields of study, and related career prospects, are not suitable for women. So, girls are discouraged from pursuing them from an early age.

In fact, we found not only that girls are under-represented in STEM. They are also over-represented in fields such as healthcare and education, which are associated with the roles traditionally allocated to women. In other words, the gender segregation in education mirrors and is a result of socially ingrained cultural norms around gender roles and aspiration: women are still predominantly perceived as key care-takers at the household level, whereas men are expected to be the household’s breadwinner.

As a result, many girls lack confidence in their abilities in STEM. This keeps them further away from the prospect of embracing an education, and then a career, in these sectors. It is a vicious cycle that perpetuates existing gender inequalities and risks to create new ones, as the labour market evolves in conjunction with the energy transition.

Nurgul: How does this impact on the employment patterns in the energy sector?

Silvia: We can say that education is the first window where gender imbalances in the energy sector become visible, and the gender gaps that start there go on to generate a cascade of other imbalances.

First of all, the share of women working in the energy sector in Central Asia is substantially lower than that of men: women account on average for 16 percent of the workforce in the energy field. In fact, the energy sector displays one of the highest gender imbalances in the workforce among all industries.

It is not only a quantitative problem but also a qualitative issue. Besides being significantly fewer than men, women working in energy companies are mostly employed in administrative positions, whereas higher managerial and leadership positions are occupied by men. In fact, women are confronted with several challenges, including the gender pay gap, not only to enter the energy sector but also to get promoted and advance their career in it.

Nurgul: Does this apply also to the clean energy segment?

Silvia: The renewable energy sector portrays a more nuanced picture: women’s employment therein is estimated to be higher than in the traditional energy sector in the cases of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In Kazakhstan, renewable energy employs fewer women than the traditional energy sector, whereas no notable difference between the two sectors is reported in Turkmenistan, as far as women’s employment is concerned.

Nurgul: Which stakeholders can play a role to address these gaps?

Silvia: As with all gender issues, everyone has a role to play in advancing gender equality and promoting more inclusive societies. But there are specific stakeholder types that, according to our studies, are particularly well positioned to drive change here.

We found recurrent references to the role of parents, and family environments, in directing children and the youth in their selection of studies. More than on their interests, their skills and competences, young boys and girls in Central Asia decide what to study based on the recommendations, perceptions and expectations of their parents and adult family members. It is therefore very important to work closely with families, and parents in particular, to build their awareness about the opportunities that the STEM fields have to offer, to girls and boys alike.

Secondly, when looking at specific measures to attract girls to STEM, we found several international initiatives in Central Asian countries, such as “Girls in Science” or “Skills4Girls” by UNICEF or “STEM4ALL x Mentoring Her” by the UNDP. National stakeholders have so far focused on drawing the youth’s attention to STEM. While this is surely welcome and needed, additional and dedicated efforts are needed, at the national level, to increase the specific participation of girls in these fields. In Kazakhstan, for instance, Atyrau Oil & Gas University launched the first dedicated Executive MBA program on “Women’s Leadership in the Energy Industry”. Civil society also offers some promising examples: in Tajikistan, for instance, the NGO Jahoni Mo empowers women and girls through STEM, providing IT skills and knowledge to help them pursue successful careers in the field, and the NGO Shams supports schoolgirls from rural areas to pursue higher education in STEM.

Industry players also have a key role to play, and here as well we start seeing some promising examples. Increasing qualified female professionals in the sector is not only a gender justice principle, but also a business priority for the countries to be able to run and sustain their energy transition efforts. In the last few years, the Region witnessed the creation of several associations of women in energy, such as the “Women for the Just Transition Network” in Kazakhstan. In Uzbekistan, for instance, Uzbekenergo established a Gender Equality Board and the company “Thermal Power Plants” established a Women’s Council.

By scaling up and replicating at a wider level these promising measures, countries in the Region can benefit of a more inclusive and resilient development. And regional cooperation is another avenue that holds significant potential for stakeholders to join hands, exchange best practices and advance common priorities.

Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic – The representatives of the Ministry of Energy of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Green Energy Fund under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic, and the experts of the European Union (EU) funded SECCA project gathered at the jointly organised Roundtable “Development of Small Hydropower in Kyrgyzstan: First Steps Taken” on 4 February 2025.

Kyrgyzstan has prioritised small hydropower development as a key component of its national energy strategy, aiming to reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports and address electricity shortages.

The SECCA project provides technical assistance to Kyrgyzstan with a pre-feasibility study and knowledge-sharing, including by conducting a comprehensive model pre-feasibility study for the Karakol-1 Hydropower Plant (HPP) project in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul region. This Project had been proposed for the study by the Green Energy Fund. At the Roundtable, the SECCA experts presented the results of this study, as well as shared the experience of Georgia, one of the Energy Community Contracting Parties, on the development of hydropower.

The pre-feasibility study for this project confirms its technical, financial, and environmental viability. With the involvement of the expert team consisting of national and international experts, several design options were analysed to determine the most feasible solution. Two primary design options considered:

• Option 1 reuses elements of the former SHPP layout with a derivation channel system – it is deemed cost-effective and technically feasible
• Option 2 proposes a new pressurized pipeline system – it has been found to be unbankable due to higher costs and risks.

Based on this analysis, Option 1, with an installed capacity of 2.1 MW and annual generation of 11.8 GWh, is recommended for its financial sustainability.

Background information:

Starting from May 2023, the SECCA project has been providing technical support to the Ministry of Energy and the Green Energy Fund of the Kyrgyz Republic in development of  renewable energy sources (RES). The necessary steps to be taken from RES policy development to project implementation were first introduced in one of the sessions of the Conference held within the First EU–Kyrgyzstan Sustainable Energy Days campaign; while practical aspects of small-scale RES development with a focus on small hydropower, through state-owned specialized Funds were presented in October 2023, at the technical workshop held in Bishkek. In November 2023, with the SECCA project’s support, the Kyrgyz Green Energy Fund signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Georgian Energy Development Fund (GEDF). In December 2023, SECCA and the Green Energy Fund agreed to develop a model pre-feasibility study for a SHPP. In February 2024, the Karakol-1 SHPP was pre-selected for the pre-feasibility study. In July 2024, the kick-off meeting was held in Bishkek to agree on the first step to conduct the study, which was then followed by the visit of the experts of the Green Energy Fund and the SECCA project to the Karakol-1 SHPP.

Almaty, Kazakhstan – As part of its work to build capacities of the CA countries to develop national energy sector models, the European Union (EU) funded SECCA project has set up the Regional Group on Modelling consisting of two young professionals from each Beneficiary Country and delivered three regional trainings on energy modelling in the period from September 2024 to January 2025. These trainings aimed to transfer the basic concepts, and the theoretical and practical approaches, related to analysing and modelling complex energy systems at the national and regional level.

The third and final regional training on model-based energy and climate analysis took place this week from 28 to 31 January 2025. It gathered the young professionals and national experts from line ministries and agencies of the Central Asian (CA) countries. They learned about technical practices for quantitative modelling analysis and their links with the preparation of strategic documents and integrated energy and climate plans.

By convening these regional trainings, the SECCA project intends to create a long-lasting virtuous bridge between the SECCA project activities and the local decision-makers, improve the local system-thinking and the knowledge-based data-driven decision making in the energy and climate sectors, enhance the technical and policy dialogue among the different stakeholders within each country, and among the CA countries, in the energy and climate fields, and generate practical impacts (improved capacities) that go beyond the duration of the SECCA project.

The first training was held on 24-27 September 2024, while the second training took place on 11-13 December 2024.

Online – 60 students and faculty staff members of higher educational institutions in Central Asia (CA) attend an online training “Introduction to Sustainable Energy: Theory and Practice” from 20 January to 28 February 2025.

This tailor-made training is the European Union’s (EU) award to the winners and participants of the Students debates organised within “The European Union – Central Asia Sustainable Energy Days” in all countries of CA in 2024. It is organised by the EU-funded SECCA project and delivered by the Florence School of Regulation (FSR, Italy), a European centre of excellence for innovative trainings on energy and climate.

The training is structured into nine modules. Each module includes a live session with the instructors and researchers of FSR, as well as additional self-study material. At the end of the training, the attendees will have learned about the EU energy and climate policy context, internal EU energy market, power sector regulation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, e-mobility, consumer engagement and empowerment, gender dimension of sustainable energy strategies, as well as present challenges and perspectives in the sector in the CA region and countries.

Astana, Kazakhstan – The European Union (EU) funded SECCA project held a series of meetings with the national stakeholders in Kazakhstan dedicated to the development of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP). The project experts met with the representatives of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan, JSC Institute of Economic Research, the Association of the Regional Environmental Initiatives “ECOJER”, and the Association Oil and Energy Complex Organisations “KAZENERGY”.

During these meetings, SECCA Senior Expert on NECP Murman Margvelashvili shared the experience of the EU and the Energy Community Contracting Parties in NECP development and implementation. He presented on the plan’s structure and main elements, policy measures, responsibilities of implementing authorities, public consultations, data management, monitoring, and reporting under the NECP.

NECP is an important tool for achieving the sustainable development goals and effective energy transition. These plans focus primarily on decarbonisation, improving energy efficiency, enhancing energy security, deploying renewable energy, and supporting research and innovation in these areas. All EU Member States must develop, implement, and update their NECPs to reach the EU’s climate targets.