Jiska de Groot

Dr Jiska de Groot, CEO of GDS, is a GESI practitioner in the  climate change  and innovation space with over 12 years’ experience working in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. As such, she has a deep understanding of GESI challenges and opportunities in climate change in Africa and South Asia in both urban and rural contexts, and across a range of technologies. Her topical expertise lies in the provision of  GESI support, capacity building for  the energy access and climate change mitigation, technology innovation and transfer, energy entrepreneurship, and the human dimension of climate change mitigation. Her strong research and capacity building background enables her to contribute to evidence-based programme design, strategy development, as well as GESI approaches for government, donors partners and private sector. The extensive experience in working with  a range of stakeholders, including the public sector, the private sector and communities, provides a strong basis for developing enabling environments, technical assistance, and project design, implementation and evaluation, hereby delivering the much needed on-the-ground impacts.

Specific experience includes:

• Design and implementation of energy and GESI-focused research, organisational diagnostics, and capacity building in over 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in both Anglophone and Francophone countries, including for GEF-funded projects such as the Technology Needs Assessment, and energy access programmes (such as the UK FCDO funded Transforming Energy Access – TEA- Programme).
• Design and delivered training materials for delivering gender and social responsive energy and climate change projects in Africa for UNFCCC.
• Conducted GESI needs assessment and analysis for climate and energy programmes in a range of African geographies. This includes assisting national governments, large institutions and private sector projects in diagnosing GESI and (in)equality in their system, delivering strategies and action plans for addressing gender inequalities, as well as the set-up of gender-sensitive reporting/M&E systems.
• Conducted monitoring and evaluation of GESI measures at strategy and project level. Provided recommendations for setting monitoring and evaluation criteria for GESI in energy projects including for solar home systems in urban settings (including lighting and energy systems planning).
• Trained stakeholders (including private companies, public-private partnerships and policy makers) in understanding and proactively addressing GESI in energy access and climate change and conducted gender and consultation workshops with stakeholders, including awareness raising,
• Communicated gender and equity guidance to a range of local and international stakeholders including in person and online settings in workshop and training sessions, as well as in written and oral formats.