Tanzania Gender and Sustainable Energy Network
Background information
Tanzania Gender and Sustainable energy network (TANGSEN) is a professional network advocating for women empowerment and increased access to modern energy technologies and services in Tanzania. The network is non-governmental, nonprofit making, non-political, and gender-sensitive. The network was established in 1998 through the support of ENERGIA and TaTEDO as an informal gender advocacy network of the profession. In 2009 the network was registered as National Gender and Sustainable Energy Network (NGSEN) under the society Act 2004 in the Ministry of Home Affairs. Now the network is a compliant of the NGO Act of 2008 under the name “Tanzania Gender and Sustainable Energy Network (TANGSEN)”.
Vision
Men and women are accessing sustainable energy through equitable social, economic and cultural power relations in communities.
Mission
To engender energy through advocacy, capacity building, awareness raising, information sharing and increase women's participation, control, ownership and benefits on sustainable energy technologies and services.
Goals
To empower both women and men in order to actively participate in engendering energy for sustainable development and to promote increased women involvement in the energy sector through networking, Partnership and sharing of information
Governance
The highest decision making organ is Annual General Meeting (AGM) and there is a Board of Directors who meet on quarterly basis to review TANGSEN progress. The TANGSEN secretariat is responsible with execution of day to day affair headed by the Executive Secretary.
Strategic Areas
Lobbying and advocacy for gender mainstreaming in energy sector.
The National Energy Policy (2015)and other guiding instruments of the sector recognize the importance of gender in sector planning and service delivery, however large gap can be seen in the implementation of Gender actions among the key energy stakeholders.
TANGSEN is striving to work with stakeholders in and outside the energy sector to raise awareness on the situation of gender in energy, gender, and energy nexus, engage with government and other actors in the field of energy to take concrete action towards gender and social inclusion in energy policy, strategies, and programs. The gender mainstreaming approach should be considered and become an integral part of the energy program and project, as it enhances livelihoods and ensures both the development and sustainability of energy systems. TANGSEN will use amicable tactical approaches that focus on the ‘more formal’ approach by unifying members in different sectors and support them to work as a team in advocating for gender and energy issues around their respective sectors. Therefore, lobbying and advocacy for TANGSEN will be a continuous process of engaging government and other actors at different levels in the energy sector to fill gaps of gender in energy development policy, strategies, initiatives, programs, and projects.
Institutional Strengthening
Building capable and legitimate network has been recognized by all members of TANGSEN as key to achieving targets of the network and gender and energy needs for women and men in the community. The attention of members has been on the organizational set-up, projects and gender and energy development activities, mainly because of sustainability of network activities, coordination of partners to avoid duplication of efforts. Institutional strengthening is required for TANGSEN to improve the performance of the networking in the context of gender and energy interventions in order to execute network activities to achieve required impact countrywide.
TANGSEN will expand its set-up of having members and focal points from seven (7) regions to almost 15 regions. There is a need to map out energy and gender related organizations in other regions not covered with TANGSEN in order to sell the idea of joining the network. The network also needs to build strong structures and build teamwork that may lead to sprit of togetherness. Through the spirit of togetherness resources will be pooled together, initiatives will be coordinated, lessons learned will be disseminated in an effective way, and opportunities for sustaining outcomes and impacts will be maximized.
Capacity Building
Financial sustainability is one of the functional areas for the network. This will be complemented by structural changes that will ensure that resources are allocated to areas and operations that support core mandate of TANGSEN and also generate revenue. As a strategy to address financial sustainability enhanced resource mobilization from both local and international markets shall be critical. Through this strategic area a focus will be put in identifying alternative sources of revenue to reduce dependency on development partners, streamline operations and lobby for enhanced long-term funding, increase proposal writing, undertaking fundraising events. New funding opportunities from different sources will be sought and wider geographical spread of donors will be engaged.
The network will strive to improve its net asset position by improving its traditional ways of writing proposals and engage with donors, private fundraising, reducing costs and ensuring the overall recovery of our total project costs. A strong capital base will provide network with the ability to support its mission, invest in priorities and achieve long-term goals. This will be affected by determining a minimum desired capital balance to ensure that our reserves are appropriate to network needs. The strategic area in the future increase the sustainable financial and material capacity of TANGSEN and therefore, reduce donor dependence.
Resource Mobilization
Financial sustainability is one of the functional areas for the network. This will be complemented by structural changes that will ensure that resources are allocated to areas and operations that support core mandate of TANGSEN and also generate revenue. As a strategy to address financial sustainability enhanced resource mobilization from both local and international markets shall be critical. Through this strategic area a focus will be put in identifying alternative sources of revenue to reduce dependency on development partners, streamline operations and lobby for enhanced long-term funding, increase proposal writing, undertaking fundraising events. New funding opportunities from different sources will be sought and wider geographical spread of donors will be engaged.
The network will strive to improve its net asset position by improving its traditional ways of writing proposals and engage with donors, private fundraising, reducing costs and ensuring the overall recovery of our total project costs. A strong capital base will provide network with the ability to support its mission, invest in priorities and achieve long-term goals. This will be affected by determining a minimum desired capital balance to ensure that our reserves are appropriate to network needs. The strategic area in the future increase the sustainable financial and material capacity of TANGSEN and therefore, reduce donor dependence.
Networking and Information Sharing Management
The network success depends on ability to share the right information, with the right stakeholders, at the right time. The information sharing mandate requires sustained and responsible collaboration between network, members and other interested stakeholders (local and foreign stakeholders).
Over the last few years, during implementation of previous strategic plan, the network established some tools for networking and sharing information such as meeting, workshops, email, social media and website.
TANGSEN will strive to network with hierarchies in the community to collect, process and store energy and gender information. The storage of information requires some tools which will support dissemination to the stakeholders. This strategic functional area enables the Network to strengthen and develop some of these tools being database, library and information delivery systems (website, social media, newsletters, bulletins, etc.). The intention is to share information and knowledge from the network with community and decision makers.
Levels of Engagement
The network works at different levels in its engagements.
1. National Level
TANGSEN at the National level is working with the Ministry of Energy, TAMISEMI and other National energy institutions (REA, TANESCO, TPDC, and EWURA). Main activities at this level include lobbying and advocacy and capacity building for gender mainstreaming.
2. Local Level.
TANGSEN is working with District authorities to create an enabling environment for investments in sustainable energy sources and technologies and also in planning for gender and energy at the level of the district.
3. With partners
Together with like-minded institutions, local and international, TANGSEN is working to support delivering sustainable development goals.
Partners
Currently TANGSEN is working closely with the following partners.
(a) Government: Ministry of Energy, President's office Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDGEC), Rural Energy Agency (REA), TANESCO, EWURA, TPDC and other line Ministries.
(b) Local NGOs: ForumCC, Climate Action Network-Tanzania (CAN-TZ), TGNP, TaTEDO, ENVIROCARE, MoECO, NICE, FECE, NUKTA-Tanzania, JET, Hivos-Energy Change Lab.
(C) International Organizations and NGOs: Hivos, ENERGIA, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), TraidCraft-Exchange, IIED, CUTS-Kenya.
Annual General Meeting
TANGSEN Management is comprised of three main levels.
This is the highest decision making body in the organization, composed of all finding members (both institutional and honorary individual members). It meets once a year and to decide the direction of the organization for the year, passing budgets and plans and in every five years, formulate the 5-year Organization Strategic Plan.
Board of Directors
The board of directors main responsibilities include: to ensure good governance of the network, good legitimacy, conduct strategic visioning, responsiveness and advisory to the AGM and Secretariat, accountability of all structure, ensuring compliance, transparency and fairness. The board has 6 members.
The Secretariat
The secretariat led by the Executive conduct day-to-day technical and administrative functions. The secretariat is comprised of technical personnel including the program officers and the advisor and administrative personnel comprising of the executive secretary, office manager and accounting and finance personnel.
Emeline Manase
Office Manager
Glory Shifwaya
Finance Manager
Thabit Mikidadi
Program and Communications Manager
Everline Kihulla
Business Development Expert
Hezron Kajange
Executive Secretary
Gisela Ngoo
Gender and Energy Expert
Leonard Pesambili
Energy Expert