PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA, November 28, 2024 – Fair Finance Asia’s (FFA) latest report, Towards a Gender-Transformative Energy Transition in Asia, reveals critical gaps in the consideration of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the early retirement of Cirebon 1 coal-fired power plant (CFPP) in Indonesia. The early retirement of Cirebon 1 is the first transaction under the Asian Development Bank’s Energy Transition Mechanism (ADB ETM).  

Launched on November 27 and endorsed by Climate Action Network Southeast Asia (CANSEA), Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Reclaim Finance, Recourse, Reality of Aid Asia-Pacific (RoA-AP), and Fair Finance International (FFI), FFA’s assessment considers Cirebon 1 an important case study for how the ADB’s ETM model identifies and assesses gender issues, and whether the ETM promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment. FFA urges the ADB to address the critical gaps in the gender considerations of the ADB’s ETM pilot in Cirebon 1, as a basis for improving the ETM’s implementation in other pilot countries.   

Based on FFA’s assessment of the Preliminary Just Transition Assessment (PJTA) summary report associated with the early retirement of Cirebon 1, FFA, partners, and allies demand more gender-disaggregated data collection, assessment, and inclusive and meaningful participation of women, other marginalised groups, and local women’s rights organisations (WROs), consistent with commitments.

Future data collection and assessments should consider the gendered impacts of the ADB’s ETM pilot in Cirebon 1 on health, land rights and land-based livelihoods, unpaid care work, gender-based violence (GBV), energy access, changes to gendered power dynamics in households and communities, employment, and decent work.

The ADB’s just transition plan should also be guided by a commitment to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment through the design and delivery of gender-transformative interventions. 

Moreover, given that the ADB’s Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment’s (SESA) scoping report pilot did a poor job of systematically identifying gender issues and involved limited participation from WROs, a stand-alone participatory gender impact assessment would be more useful to assess gender risks and opportunities arising from the energy transition and implementation of the ETM at the country level, and to make recommendations for gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

“The lack of a robust gender transformative framework in the ADB’s ETM is a glaring oversight. Leaving half the population behind not only undermines commitment to equity, but also limits the energy transition’s potential to fundamentally restructure gendered power structures in households and communities for the better and to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. It’s time to prioritise gender equality as a foundational element in Asia’s energy transition strategy. This can be realised by meaningfully identifying and addressing the barriers women face in accessing opportunities in the energy transition, and supporting the active engagement of women and WROs in decision-making and feedback loops,” said Bernadette Victorio, Program Lead, Fair Finance Asia. 

The ETM aims to incentivise the early retirement of CFPPs. For Cirebon 1, this means bringing its closure forward to 2035. The process is long and analysis and planning are still at an early stage. This means that there is only limited documentation available and not all documents are available in full.

This presents challenges to understanding the full extent to which risks and opportunities for gender equality and women’s empowerment have been identified. This long-time frame also presents challenges to holding the ADB, Cirebon Electric Power (CEP), and the Government of Indonesia accountable for commitments made to date. 

“Women and girls are especially vulnerable to the gendered impacts of energy transition investments, such as increased incidence of GBV, gender-based discrimination in the form of unequal wages and access to work, negative impacts on their livelihoods due to disruption of ecosystem services, and limited inclusion in decision-making processes. They have also been disproportionately impacted during the operation period of Cirebon 1, and it must be ensured that these negative impacts do not persist during the ETM transition process. The ADB must ensure that ETM implementation in the CFPP upholds the rights and well-being of women and girls, and does not amplify risks and harms for them,” said Herni Ramdlaningrum, Program Manager, the PRAKARSA. 

FFA, partners, and allies believe that a just energy transition must be built on extensive, inclusive, and meaningful engagement with a wide range of stakeholders. However, civil society organisations (CSO) reiterate concerns that the Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) has been developed with inadequate public and civil society participation, poor disclosure of information, and limited transparency.

Disregard for these important principles is of great concern to FFA, partners, and allies. Unless rectified, there is a risk that implementation of the JETP, the ADB’s ETM, and Indonesia’s energy transition, more broadly, will not be just. 

“Women and girls in the communities are left behind in energy transition discussions. This explains why their concerns are rarely brought up with policymakers.  In this case, women and girls should not be viewed as victims in the energy transition process. Instead, they are empowered actors if they have the resources. Thus, it is important to ensure that women and girls are not only involved in the process of energy transition but are also given opportunities to access and be part of capacity-building activities,” said Dr. Genalyn G. Aquino-Arcayera, Program Manager, Fair Finance Philippines, Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS). 

The report also raises concerns that the ADB’s Environmental and Social Framework (ESF), which the ADB approved in late November 2024 as an update to its 2009 Safeguard Policy Statement (SPS), does not include a specific gender safeguard or requirements for mandatory project gender impact assessments.

By considering gender a cross-thematic priority, the ADB’s ESF misses a critical opportunity to include project-affected women and girls as participants and experts. 

“Gender and climate justice are at the core of our work. As a country most at risk and vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, a just transition away from the fossil fuel-based system is a must. Gender-just transformation must look at the differentiated impact of inequitable energy transition and intersecting issues of energy transition with gender inequality, GBV, and care work,” said Joel Chester “Cheng” Pagulayan, Climate Justice Portfolio Manager, Oxfam Pilipinas. 

“With the early retirement of Cirebon 1, we are presented with a crucial ten-year window to ensure a fair transition for all, especially for women and marginalised groups. We are proactively identifying the risks and opportunities in this paper with the hope that they are addressed well in advance and translated into concrete actions. We advocate for the active inclusion of women and marginalised communities in the development of ADB’s ETM plans as their voices are integral to decision-making. It’s essential that the energy transition is not myopic: issues such as health impacts, land rights, unpaid care work, gender-based violence, and access to decent employment must also be prioritised. We firmly believe that, with the right approach, the ETM can not only prevent the deepening of inequities but also work actively to bridge critical gender gaps,” said Myrah Nerine Butt, Gender Justice Policy Advocacy Manager, Oxfam in Asia. 

To strengthen the implementation of the ADB’s ETM in Indonesia’s Cirebon 1 and other pilot countries so that it promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment, the report makes the following recommendations, among others, to the ADB: 

For Indonesia and the Cirebon 1 transaction: 

  • Supplement the SESA of the ETM in Indonesia with a gender impact assessment. It should be translated in local languages, published in full, and involve the active and meaningful participation of women and WROs during the preparation and implementation. The gender impact assessment should be based on gender-disaggregated data that includes clear information on employment and decent work, health, land rights and land-based livelihoods (as well as water rights and water-based livelihoods such as fisheries), unpaid care work, GBV, and energy access. 
  • Publish the full PJTA and supporting analyses for Cirebon 1 and ensure relevant translations into local languages to make it accessible. 
  • The just transition plan for the CFPP should be guided by a commitment to contributing to gender equality and women’s empowerment, including through the design and delivery of gender-transformative projects and programs.

Other countries’ ETMs:

  • All assessments of the potential risks and opportunities of the ETM for women and men should be equitably based on:
    • The collection and analysis of gender-disaggregated data. 
    • A stand-alone gender impact assessment (in addition to tools such as SESA and a just transition assessment). 
    • The inclusive, active, meaningful, and continuous participation of women and WROs as well as relevant civil society organisations (CSOs).
  • Just transition planning should be guided by a commitment to contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment, including through the design and delivery of gender-transformative projects and programs. 

General recommendations:

  • Strengthen gender safeguards in the approved Environmental and Social Framework (ESF), including to reframe women’s role as active participants within the framework of a gender action plan rather than the protectionist attitude of avoiding and protecting their rights. 
  • Develop and implement a more effective, gender responsive grievance mechanism that delivers remedy and redress to affected people, including women, men, girls, boys, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA+), and non-binary people. 
  • Improve the environmental and social compliance audits by strengthening gender considerations in the processes, including with regards to the ETM. 

FFA suggests for these recommendations to be implemented alongside initiatives to strengthen energy democracy through small-scale, locally owned, and gender-representative energy systems; to address barriers to women’s labor force participation; and to emphasise a rights-based approach and gender-based needs for ecosystem resilience.   

FFA’s report considers documents published before 25 November 2024 and acknowledges that additional assessments will be undertaken and published by the ADB. The conclusions reached in FFA’s report could, therefore, change based on information published in the future.  

To read the full report, visit: bit.ly/FFAgenderETM.

About FFA 

Fair Finance Asia (FFA) is a regional network of Asian CSOs committed to ensuring that financial institutions’ funding decisions in the region respect the social and environmental well-being of local communities. For more information about FFA, visit: https://fairfinanceasia.org/.