RURAL ELECTRIFICATION AGENCY Second from left is the lady technician participating in the construction of Moroto - Nakapiripirit 33KV line in February, 2019. Nanjing Daji Steel Tower Manufacturing Co. Ltd was contracted by REA to build the 203.4 Km-MV electricity line in March 2017. Dr. Patricia Litho of REA exhibiting the electricity distribution model during the Jinja Agricultural Expo in 2018. REA IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER In a male dominated sector like the energy sector, an organization like the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) that has 42% of its staff as female is considered to be doing quite well in gender mainstreaming. With a total of 150 staff members, 63 of them are females and to Dr. Patricia Litho, the Agency’s Principal Corporate & Community Affairs Officer, this is relatively balanced gender employment. While champions of women empowerment push for more numbers for women in employment, Litho reasons that it is important to go beyond the numbers and consider the relationship between males and female when it comes to equity in accessing resources and opportunities since that is were the inequality manifests itself. In REA for instance, it would be important to review the various decision making positions males and females hold. At the top of REA’s structure is the Rural Electrification Board (REB) which is a 7-member team as the highest decision making level. The board is comprised of representation of ministries of energy, finance and local government as well as private sector, financial sector and civil society organisations and the executive director as the board secretary. Of these, four are men while the three are women. The women board members are Aida Wanendeya, Olivia Kabaale and Annet Mulindwa representing the private sector, civil society organisations and financial sector respectively. For example, of the organisation’s eight departments and seven units, six are headed by females. The Agency has several technical females officers; thirteen of who are engineers; while the rest hold the positions of officers and Administrative Assistants. GENDER MAINSTREAMING AT REA In its effort the ensure gender considerations and mainstreaming in its work REA has a gender working group which feeds into the bigger sector gender working group. The gender sector working group consists of representatives from the various energy sector institutions who are working together to ensure gender mainstreaming both at their various agencies and in their project area. The REA gender working group ensures all projects pay attention to gender issues. The Agency also targets services centres that benefit women especially health centres and water sources. As an infrastructure development institution; the majority of the workforce is male because of their numbers as far as technical training in engineering is concerned. We however ensure gender mainstreaming in these projects by employoing both males and females if these are competent. We ensure the communities we work in also benefit from employment opportunities regardless of their gender. We give sensitization on a range of topics including; HIV/AIDs, health and safety, energy efficiency and productive uses of energy. We deliberately ensure that women also attend these meetings since they are a big consumer of energy. Litho noted that there is also a sensitisation gap as most of the meetings called to address gender issues are majorly attended by men instead unless it is a deliberate call for women. To address this, Litho explained that they have paid special attention to women’s schedules and set the sensitisation meetings at times that are convenient for women. “We schedule these meetings for evenings just to ensure that women shall have time to attend,” Litho said. International Women’s Day 2019 Cynthia Kamukama of REA during the Energy week exhibition at KCCA grounds Lugogo. REA female staff matching during the annual Energy week in Kampala