A key driver of the modern increase in global entrepreneurship is the increasing participation of women in sectors that were once inaccessible to them. This Global Entrepreneurship Week, CIPE’s Elena Ratoi sits down with Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi, a trailblazer for women in Kosovo’s energy sector. Together, they discuss how Arijeta’s recent partnership with CIPE’s Center for Women’s Economic Empowerment is strengthening women’s participation in Kosovo’s traditionally male-dominated energy sector. Listeners will learn how new technology is decreasing labor-intensive roles, how young women are meeting older role models, and how more women-centered events are decreasing knowledge gaps.
Guest Bio:
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi’s professional career as an electrical engineer is complemented by her academic profile with a Master of Science degree from the Electrotechnical Faculty, University of Prishtina. In 2021 she has been graduated from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in Gender Equity Executive Leadership Program. She has been part of the sector for almost 25 years. She currently works as an engineer specialist for SCADA / EMS in the Kosovo Transmission System and Market Operator (KOSTT) and as an executive director of AWESK (Association of Women in the Energy Sector of Kosovo) and contributes and advocate for many years to the advancement of the national agenda for the inclusion of women in energy.
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Transcript
Announcer (00:00):
Democracy that Delivers is brought to you by the Center for International Private Enterprise. Now, to your host.
Elena Ratoi (00:08):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Democracy that Delivers podcast. I’m Elena Ratoi. I’m a Program Officer at CIPE and today with me is Arijeta Pajaziti QerimiQerimi, co-founder and the Executive Director of the Association of Women in the Energy Sector in Kosovo or AWESK. Together, we are going to explore the roles played by women in non-traditional professions, specifically in energy sector. In January of 2023, AWESK was selected by CIPE to participate in its new project entitled “Strengthening the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem by Networking Regional Women’s Chambers of Commerce and Business Associations” or how we call it shortly, WE-Champs. Funded by the US Department of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, WE-Champs partners with women business associations and chambers of commerce from Europe, Central Asia, and Africa to support them to lead and advocate for locally designed actions aimed to promote women’s economic empowerment, gender responsive institutions, and to address the needs of their members.
(01:13):
Arijeta, good morning and welcome. Thank you for accepting to join the podcast.
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(01:18):
Good morning. Thank you for inviting me. I’m glad to be part of this podcast.
Elena Ratoi (01:23):
Thank you. For the beginning, I wanted to ask you to tell us about your journey in the energy sector and what motivated you to found the Association of Women in Energy Sector.
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(01:34):
Yes, it’s been a long time ago when I decided to study at Electrotechnical University here in Prishtina, Kosovo and from that time, I knew that my profession, my next profession in the future will be related to the energy sector in Kosovo. And after many years of being part of the sector, working actively, there it came an idea of how can we treat women’s position in the energy sector, since the energy sector is known everywhere globally as a masculine, as a profession dedicated for men to work on it. So, we just wanted to think of opportunities and challenges the women can face in the energy sector.
(02:32):
We were a group from all institutions of energy sector in Kosovo that being supported by the USAID in Kosovo, one program of the USAID- that time it was REPOWER-Kosovo- they gathered us for the first time in the roundtable to discuss about these issues. So, there was some workshops being organized and it came as an idea that women can think of establishing an association that will in continuous work and advocate about their position in the energy sector.
Elena Ratoi (03:12):
You were mentioning the challenges and the issues faced by women in this non-traditional profession for women. Can you please list some challenges women do face in this sector, which is mostly masculinized?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(03:28):
Yes, starting from the very low percentage of them working in the energy sector… But for many years, we are doing a lot to increase this percentage and even being part of the roundtables, addressing the long-term energy strategy for Kosovo, we have achieved that from the position with less than 10%- that was some years ago-, for the moment, we have around 15% women working in energy sector and in the long-term energy strategy, the targeted percentage is at least 25% up to 2031. By this time, same as in all countries in the region, Kosovo is doing the energy transition toward the renewable energy and this have been found as a very good opportunity for women- not only for electrical engineering or the similar professions-, but even with the science of, for example, STEM subjects can join and work in energy sector.
(04:41):
These are the, how to say, the initial challenges, but there comes another one that happens in all sectors like the difficulties of a work-life balance, then motherhood period, the talent pool… to have the same opportunities to be a part of talent pool, then to have opportunity for trainings and improvements up to the leadership positions that unfortunately are still very low and it’s a challenge within a challenge if we talk about the leadership position in the technical departments because some numbers from the finances or HR departments can maybe justify this increase of the percentage, but when it comes to the core business departments and the technical departments, the percentage and the numbers still remain very low.
Elena Ratoi (05:49):
Anyway, congratulations on this achievement because increasing women’s representation by five percentage points is very huge. So indeed, congratulations. Can you tell us more about what specifically you did to support women to be more represented in energy sector?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(06:08):
We have been registered as a non-profitable NGO from 2018. We have been launched in 2017, so we were the address when women can be oriented and join the association or work with us together to achieve the same goals and the objectives and we did a lot on advocating. We started with the first project that was support of the young girls to be oriented in the STEM subjects and this we have implemented in the five cities of Kosovo, all around the Kosovo in the high schools with the students of the last year, just before graduation. This has been done with the information sessions. In each of the information session, our members, five of our members for each city have presented their personal and professional pathway to achieve the title and the career and we have presented the institutions of the energy sector so they had possibility to meet in person some role models that show to them that even in energy sector the woman can survive, can have a healthy family, can balance work and life, can make a working life balance, and overcome all challenges that we can deal with.
Elena Ratoi (07:52):
Yes, indeed, indeed. It’s a great call and also, I know that your association provides mentorship and peer learning opportunities for your members but also for women, for other women in energy sector. Can you please share with us what do you think? What kind of role does mentorship and peer learning play in supporting women to engage especially in non-traditional professions for women?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(08:20):
Yes, it’s a very good opportunity and comparing with the time when I was student, for example, we didn’t have those kind of opportunities. We only had some professors or some role models that we can think that we will follow their professional way, but if you have a chance to meet, to be close to them to discuss about them, for all question marks that you have in your head, about some professional questions, about some career orientation that you have or about some decision that the woman or girl have to make in life and maybe they can find something in common with your career pathway so they can use it and if you give advice to them, you support them, this have a very big influence and they can be more sustainable on their requests.
Elena Ratoi (09:34):
Yeah, yeah, indeed. You also were mentioning the transition energy or transition to renewable energy. How do you see the role of women in these transition of energy sector?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(09:51):
For the moment in Kosovo, this energy sector is the issue of the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Economy is being managed by a very successful woman minister that is in the first line for energy transition as well and she is very open to all the requests, to all the initiatives to follow the best practices of the developed countries and everywhere, even in our country, the women should and they can have a big opportunity working in energy sector.
(10:40):
We have a solar panel generation units and the installation of them, then the maintenance, even the projection and the supervising of the processes can be done by a girl or a woman because they are very sophisticated. They’re all automated systems that can be configured by the computers, don’t need so much muscles like it was, people thought in the past, and maybe some… even we are doing a lot for advocating for women in energy sector.
(11:34):
We are aware of some sectors that the woman cannot be so successful like in another one. It’s work in the substation where the shifts and for example, during the night, only one operator should be in substation and even the process is all automized. There came some situation when you have to go to the field and do it by yourself or distribution level, or transmission level in the overhigh line, there are some sectors that even all men cannot deal with that. So it’s normal or we can expect that the woman cannot be. These kind of jobs or sectors are not attractive for women.
Elena Ratoi (12:30):
I see. You were mentioning indeed that now, in general, the technology support more women to enter into positions, into the fields that require, previously required the use of physical power and now because there are machines, because there are technologies, everybody can perform this job and it doesn’t depend on the physical power the person has.
(12:59):
How do you think? What kind of other opportunities or what kind of other needs women require to be encouraged to enter into this energy sector? You mentioned the working shifts. You mentioned that still, there are some works that require great physical power. Do you think that there might be any modifications to these or probably some legal changes that can support women to enter more and more in energy sector?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(13:39):
Yes, yes. We truly believe that the policies and the regulations that can be drafted and approved within the organizations and the sector in general can help a lot, but not only to be drafted and approved but to be implemented as well so the women can find themselves equal even in the applying period and in applying period when they want to be part of that institution and to retain, to have a good, how to say, good possibilities to retain on that job. Even though if the young woman can join the sector and she’s planning to establish her family and everything, maybe in the future if we think of flexible working hours, if we think of the daily care for their children within the organization can be a big help to those that think of working and contributing in the energy sector.
(15:05):
There are a lot of days that the workers in the energy sector can spend in the site, in the field and after the working hours, but comparing with hospitals where a big number of women are working on shifts, it cannot be impossible for women even in energy sector to contribute after the working hours. Normally, there should be some other condition filled like transportation, safe transportation, and things like that. That matters a lot. That matters a lot in these cases, but the contribution can be the same, not being based on the gender. Since we have the same pathway to achieve our professional title, we have the same exams, we have the same university, we go the same way to achieve it.
(16:13):
What we did as an association two years ago was… we did the publication on gender diversity in the energy sector of Kosovo just to find these challenges, opportunities to make the bridging about the academia and the industry and we found a very interesting figures that the women are studying a lot STEM subjects, but it’s always that leaking pipeline that when they think or try to find jobs and to feel equal contributing on those jobs, there’s a big challenge for them. They cannot even enter the sector or they cannot even find what they thought they can find there. Since the pay gap in Kosovo is not present based on the gender, but it’s based on the workplace and it’s kind of you are not equal because you cannot have a workplace that can be paid better. So things like that maybe looks like everyday challenges but at the end, they become a very, very important thing to be treated in the future.
Elena Ratoi (17:45):
Indeed, indeed. You were mentioning the work-life balance and child care facilities. Is your association involved in advocacy work on any of these issues?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(17:56):
We are lucky in Kosovo that we have a lot of international programs investing on these things and from one to another, they are all collaborating. We are all working closely with them. They are investing a lot in this direction, millions and millions of dollars, and I know that they already have our trust, they have built our trust, and they’re continuing to invest on these issues. Since Kosovo, as an ex-socialist country, had a tradition on some professions including engineering and works on the energy sector, even the percentage were not so high, but this has not happened only in our country but everywhere in the world. And so these initiatives about the child care facilities are always being implemented or the, how to say, the funds are being done, given by the international programs. For the moment, there’s a Millennium Challenge Corporation program that has a program called JETA for inclusion and gender equality in the energy sector and we are working closely with them in the focus groups to identify trainings that can be very helpful for women to enter the energy sector.
(19:43):
Last years, we have identified that there’s another problem. There are a lot of women that had already have the profession in energy sector but they couldn’t find the jobs. So in one way, they have to be prepared to come back and to follow what happened in the energy sector. Some of them is still working in the high schools like professors but not having a possibility to work in industry and we are always identifying these kind of challenges and these are taken in consideration when they are building what they are going to invest and what they are going to do in Kosovo. So with all this help that we have these last years, I’m sure that we can, for the very short period, even if we achieve the 25% or more of women being employed in the energy sector, we can be a good example for regional and other countries because even the AWESK, our association, is one and only in the region that is dealing as an NGO with this, advocating issues.
(21:19):
And I have to say that our contribution in AWESK is in addition to our primary work because more than 230 members of AWESK is working somewhere in the institutions in energy sector or some of them are students. And so we are doing this above ourselves in addition to our primary work and trying not to mix our work and the engagement in that association. Even when we are providing the mentorship that is in kind contribution from us to the programs, we are tending not to… for example, I’m working in one company not to mentor someone that is coming to do the mentoring in my company, not to mix the role of the supervisor that have in the company and the mentor from others. We thought that it should be very natural, it should be not being impacted by something else or someone else. So just to raise that feeling of feeling comfortable in the energy sector.
Elena Ratoi (22:39):
You were mentioning a lot of benefits you provide to your members including mentorship, participation in advocacy, and so on. But just to summarize, what do you think are the benefits or why women should join a business association, especially women working in non-traditional professions? What would be the benefit?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(23:01):
When we started working in association, it was like taking away a curtain from our eyes because we were just being, how to say, educated to work within institution. We didn’t have chance to be part of the civil society, to be part of different roundtables when people discussed with pros and contras because in the institution, it’s always one way of working and everything should be pro and it was very interesting for us.
(23:42):
So in the beginning we had the opportunity to ask for a support and the USAID gave us a support on some trainings for the association and it happens- I want to share this with you- that it happens once that our trainer, after the coffee break, when he came back in the classroom, he said, “Please leave your brain outside. Don’t think with the brain of the institution. Start thinking as an NGO” and there was for organizing NGO, how to apply for funds and things like that that we were not feeling so comfortable.
(24:26):
Since that time, it was a totally different way of working and this is very important. This is, how to say, the base of the peer learning because we meet on our meetings for applying on some project or for discussing something. So you meet your friend that is working in another institution, you got some information, you know, you identify something that we think, and we always convert them to our action in the community we live in.
Elena Ratoi (25:06):
That’s amazing. I think, I really hope that all this information will encourage more and more women to join your association but also create other associations in other countries. Specifically, if they work in non-traditional professions.
(25:20):
Arijeta, we worked together for almost two years in the WE-Champs project to support the associations, to strengthen their internal capacities, to network with other women’s business associations from other countries, and to conduct the advocacy work. Can you share how has the involvement in WE-Champs impacted, supported AWESK in supporting your members?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(25:46):
Yeah, similar to what I said when we started working on, contributing on association, it happens even with the cooperation with the CIPE and in the phase of mentoring, when… We were really a specific field and when our mentor always was encouraging us to start working on intersectoral collaboration and this was really successful because at the end, we have a new activity that we are calling AWESK Dialogues and we are organizing time to time roundtables when we invite representatives of different sectors and discuss with them about all opportunities and challenges the women can have in our sector and related with their sector because in economy, every sector is related and it was with the banking system, very successful roundtable. We did it with the universities. Then we had some visits to some programs and some other meetings and in the future, we are always trying to find which sector should be very important to meet and to start collaborating with them for the good of our community and society.
Elena Ratoi (27:20):
Yes, and I follow your dialogue sessions with different institutions and indeed, they’re very, very successful in order to promote the idea and in order to create collaborations.
(27:35):
I want to mention for the listeners that in WE-Champs, we collaborate with 25 women’s business associations and chambers of commerce from different countries, from Europe, Central Asia, and Africa and we encourage the participating associations to conduct networking. Arijeta, can you tell us if your association, AWESK, had an impact or was impacted by the networking or collaboration with other organizations from other countries?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(28:09):
Yes, yes, the networking. I think that the networking is something that is very important for everyone, but for association and other organization is the main thing. You have a possibility to exchange information. You have possibility to meet different people, to come to common ideas with them, or to see a best practice that you can convert and implement in your country, things like that and always with CIPE. It is a very wonderful experience. On the workshops we are attending, we expand our network. We have possibility to meet a lot of other organization worldwide, as you mentioned, and to build a new connection that even when there is no CIPE in the correspondence, we are continuing our collaboration and our friendship that we are building there.
Elena Ratoi (29:16):
I’m glad to know about this. Looking ahead, what is your vision for AWESK and what do you think is the broader role of women in energy sector over the next years?
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(29:30):
I think that it’s very important to build something that all others can follow. If you need to make followers, you will need to know the goal because it’s easy to just invite people to follow you, but if you don’t have a clear goal, there will not be successful at the end. With my age, for example, personally, I plan in the future to have someone that will have the same enthusiasm or the bigger one and continue with AWESK, with association with and to follow all the changes that are being done in the energy sector because we always have to be in with the things that are happening: energy strategy, then energy efficiency, energy saving, energy poverty, and the care for environment. That is one of the most important things and is the reason why the world started the energy transition.
Elena Ratoi (30:50):
Thank you so much for such an inspiring call for action. I wish you a lot of good luck in all your activities and in all the work you are doing. Thank you so much for participating today and for sharing your experience and expertise in the field of women in energy sector and I’m very glad that today, we had the opportunity to discuss this issue. And for our listeners, I invite you to follow us, to follow CIPE on social media, and to listen to the podcast series, Democracy that Delivers.
Arijeta Pajaziti Qerimi(31:27):
Thank you. It was an honor for me to be here.
Announcer (31:31):
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Published Date: November 20, 2024