September 25th, 2025
Around the world, women are driving entrepreneurial solutions that expand access to clean energy, diversify incomes, and strengthen communities. Yet, they continue to face barriers that limit growth and impact. At the upcoming ANDE Global Annual Conference in Riviera Maya, Mexico on September 30th at 3:45, Sweef Capital and Solar Sister will co-host a breakout session to explore what it takes to equip women with the tools to accelerate the renewable energy transition. Insights from Solar Sister’s alumni evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa and Sweef Capital’s KINETIK Entrepreneurship Program (KSEP) in Indonesia reinforce a common message: to unlock the potential of women entrepreneurs, the entire ecosystem, including governments, donors, accelerators, and investors, must adapt.
Below are five ecosystem challenges that emerged across contexts, and what they mean for advancing gender-inclusive entrepreneurship in clean energy.
Access to Finance
For many women entrepreneurs, capital is the missing link. More than ⅔ of Solar Sister alumni start additional income-generating businesses after their tenure with Solar Sister, but struggle to grow without financing that recognizes their track record. Sweef Capital’s work with KSEP shows that access to finance is only the starting point. Finding finance that is fit for purpose requires investors and the finance community to proactively design instruments that scale the organic growth of these companies without risking their sustainability. The program works with entrepreneurs to understand their financing options, while also engaging investors to think outside the box so women can remain central to scaling the renewable energy transition. Unlocking impact requires innovative financing vehicles, blended capital, and investors willing to value women’s potential as well as their past performance.
Skills Gaps & Training Needs
Solar Sister’s evaluation revealed that alumni who completed all trainings were the most likely to expand into new ventures and report major quality-of-life improvements. Training is not just a box to check; it’s a catalyst for growth, and in order to be effective it must be adequately tailored to gender and context-specific needs. As highlighted in GALI’s A Decade of Learnings on Gender Lens Acceleration report, entrepreneurial capacity development is a crowded space, but integrating a gender lens into programming is essential to drive outcomes for women. All KSEP Fellows complete a comprehensive gender diagnosis using Sweef Capital’s Gender ROI™ methodology and co-create gender action plans based on the results. Entrepreneurs in both programs recognize that women represent untapped potential across their businesses as leaders, employees, customers, suppliers, and community members, and they are supported to integrate this potential into their business models. Tailored training, delivered with attention to context and with applicability across different groups, helps women entrepreneurs strengthen business fundamentals, prepare for investment, and adapt to market shifts. Closing the skills gap means ensuring that training is consistent, accessible, and designed with entrepreneurs’ realities in mind.
Market Access & Networks
Entrepreneurship thrives when entrepreneurs are connected. In last-mile communities where Solar Sister operates, women often lack access to broader markets and peer networks that can amplify their businesses, which is why Solar Sister’s model emphasizes building peer networks from the ground up and leveraging women-centerned networks for selling and scaling. Through KSEP, Sweef Capital leveraged ANDE’s ecosystem mapping methodology to map key players in Indonesia, helping identify strategic advantages, gaps, and practical steps ecosystem actors can take to accelerate the green economy. This systems-level understanding informs how networks are built and ensures that entrepreneurs are connected not only to peers but also to the broader market and policy environment. Networks are essential infrastructure for inclusive entrepreneurship.
Impact Measurement
Perhaps the most persistent barrier is how to measure the impact of gender-inclusive environmental programming. Solar Sister alumni described empowerment in diverse ways—income control, mobility, safety, joint decision-making—underscoring that social norms shape how women experience entrepreneurship, and that the way beneficiaries view positive impact is not necessarily always the same as what implementers and funders might expect. Building learning into the KSEP program design was critical, and alongside a program-wide impact framework that guides adaptive management, entrepreneurs benefit from workshops and tailored coaching on IMM to help them better track, manage, and communicate their social and environmental impact. Programs must work with, not against, cultural contexts while creating spaces where women can define empowerment for themselves.
Sustainability
Training, mentorship, and finance are only effective if they are sustained. Solar Sister’s alumni survey shows that continued support yields better outcomes. In addition,KSEP’s ecosystem mapping revealed that one-off programs risk stifling the very momentum they aim to create. To avoid this, the program partners with local experts and ecosystem players, while also fostering peer learning to extend impact beyond the end of a fellowship term or workshop. Like Solar Sister, Sweef Capital has learned that community-building is essential. KSEP emphasizes ongoing connection through an online learning platform, WhatsApp groups, and in-person events to keep knowledge exchange and support alive. On the other hand, Solar Sister leverages in-person networks to meet the technology and network needs of their last-mile demographic. Long-term commitment from funders and implementers alike is critical for lasting impact, but a balance must also be struck with facilitating entrepreneurial independence for long-term sustainability.
Looking Ahead
Addressing these challenges requires collaboration across the ecosystem. At ANDE Global Solar Sister and Sweef Capital will host a joint session in a fishbowl format to surface additional lessons from across regions and sectors. We invite funders, accelerators, policymakers, and practitioners to join us, share their experiences, and help co-create solutions that remove barriers for women entrepreneurs in climate and clean energy. The insights from this session will directly inform a post-conference learning brief, ensuring that the ideas generated translate into practical guidance for the field. Together, we hope to spark a conversation that not only identifies what holds women back, but also highlights the strategies that can propel them, and their communities, forward.