Leveling the Playing Field: New Data on Gaps and Opportunities for Women in Field Roles
Knowing the business case, employers often seek to increase women’s representation in field roles, but are hampered in their ability to take meaningful action. On the one hand, women face significant barriers entering and thriving in these positions. On the other hand, there is limited quantitative data on the experiences of women field staff and the challenges they face.
To fill this evidence gap on gendered differences in field staff experience, Value for Women embarked on an investigation to gather data from 533 field staff across 10 distributed renewable energy (DRE) firms in 4 African countries. This report presents fresh insights on gendered differences in the experience of field staff, specifically focusing on job-specific factors that might hinder women in accessing and thriving in these roles. To our knowledge, this report represents the first of its kind in dedicated (sex-disaggregated) data on the experience of field staff.
Packed with actionable strategies, this report, with an accompanying infographic, shows how to design and adapt field roles to attract, retain, and support both women and men, making it an important read for organizations committed to gender equality and organizational success.
Renée is a Portfolio Lead with Value for Women. She oversees, manages and delivers a global portfolio of innovative gender and business projects, working with impact investors, businesses, and entrepreneurial ecosystem actors. Renée brings to her work a background in financial and digital inclusion, innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, along with a passion for supporting women’s empowerment. She has previously worked with Cenfri as Project Lead for the i2i Facility in South Africa, as well as with Divitel in the Netherlands.
Yvonne delivers technical assistance services to support small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurial ecosystem actors to take a gender lens to their day-to-day work. She brings to her work a background in social enterprise management, last-mile distribution and entrepreneurial ecosystems – including seven years of experience managing social enterprises in developing countries – along with a passion for supporting women’s empowerment throughout businesses and value chains.
Sophia drives project implementation and management for Value for Women advisory projects. She is a versatile and resilient professional, bringing a global perspective to problem-solving and communicating with diverse stakeholders, and has a proven record of ensuring high-quality, measurable results are achieved for Value for Women clients.
Shoshana is an Advisor – Knowledge Management & Communications at Value for Women. Shoshana oversees product conceptualization and technical writing for the organization's publications, ranging from research and evaluation reports to case studies and podcasts. Shoshana brings over 15 years of international development experience in both leadership and field positions across sectors, notably with the Inter-American Development Bank, Danone, Chemonics, TechnoServe and local non-governmental organizations.
