Knocking down gender barriers
USAID is supporting INAPA, a water utility company of the Dominican Republic, to promote gender equality.
Around the world, the utilities sectors are mostly dominated by men. The water sector is no exception: globally more than three-quarters of the jobs in the industry are done by men.
These gender disparities exist in the Dominican Republic, where stereotypes put men and women into gendered boxes that dictate the type of work they can do and the roles they should play, both on the job and at home. For example, although nearly 80 percent of women enroll in tertiary education compared to 43 percent of men, female students make up only 40 percent of graduates from STEM fields. Furthermore, only 52 percent of women join the workforce compared to more than 76 percent of men. In addition, women make only about 60 percent as much as men for similar work.
In the Dominican Republic, there are institutions that are actively working to include more women in the utilities sector. USAID is working with the Dominican Institute of Water and Sewage Systems -Instituto Nacional de Aguas Potables y Alcantarillados (INAPA)-, to counteract stereotypes against women and break down gender divisions among its employees.
Behind the blue gates of the INAPA headquarters in Santo Domingo, women make up half of the employees in the office, yet men hold all the senior leadership positions, and 97 percent of the technical and field roles. Across the country, women hold only 24 percent of jobs, most of which are concentrated in certain offices such as the commercial department.
“When we started with Engendering Industries, we conducted focus group discussions across the company. Everyone said that gender equality is important for INAPA, but several people said that there are some jobs that can only be done by men or by women. And many people did not know that we had a gender department,” said HR Manager and Engendering Industries Participant Katherine Calzado Paulino, describing the Office of Gender Equity and Development, a department that INAPA formed to address gender equality issues at the company.
To address the gender divide, INAPA joined USAID’s Engendering Industries in 2021.
USAID Engendering Industries initiative increases gender equality in male-dominated organizations around the world, by empowering employees to become equality champions. The initiative provides employees with tailored change management coaching as well as training on change management and gender topics based on evidence-based best practices.
The program has helped partner organizations in 41 countries hire more than 4,800 women and promote more than 3,800. Since 2018, USAID’s Engendering Industries has worked with Edesur Dominicana, a power utility company in the Dominican Republic, to hire 914 women and promote 351 more into key technical, commercial, and communications roles. These new hires and promotions enabled Ededur to connect with a growing customer base and thereby increase revenue, benefitting the company’s bottom line.
When INAPA joined, the company had recently launched the Office of Gender Equity and Development to develop a gender strategy. A change management coach helped INAPA conduct a gender baseline assessment and benchmark the company practices according to Engendering Industries’ Best Practices Framework for Male-Dominated Industries.
With this data, the coach supported the organization in developing recommendations for senior leadership to reach INAPA’s target of achieving gender balance in all levels and departments of the organization. “INAPA was already on a good track to improve gender equality with a dedicated gender department and key stakeholders who were already supportive of moving the needle. The data helped identify specific gaps and start conversations about how to address gender imbalances,” said Jasmine Boehm, INAPA’s Engendering Industries Change Management Coach.
With a cohort of male employees on the verge of retiring, INAPA recognized the opportunity to intentionally fill the gaps by hiring and promoting women. The company has a culture of lifelong learning so they integrated gender equality topics into their curriculum. The employees who participated in Engendering Industries developed a series of trainings to raise awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace, provide tools for diversity management, and share a framework for conflict resolution. These training sessions helped build INAPA employees’ skills and informed a new succession planning process.
“Seeing the impact of this training has helped to raise awareness about the importance of female talent in our institution” said Joan López, Head of Access to Information at INAPA, and an Engendering Industries program participant.
Since joining USAID’s Engendering Industries, INAPA has hired more than 300 women and promoted 75. They are now promoting women at a higher rate than men, slowly increasing the number of women in leadership roles. In 2022, women made up almost 30 percent of their new hires for technical jobs, which is 10 times higher than the proportion of women in similar roles in 2021.
Awareness of gender equality initiatives rose through the organization as more employees participated in training and more women joined the company. This has in turn helped generate leadership buy-in for more concerted investments in gender equality. For example, at the end of 2022, the company gathered 150 leaders to discuss a plan to build a lactation room to support nursing mothers at the company.
“Improving gender equality brings new ideas, better solutions, superior decision making, and tremendous improvements to internal processes and overall institutional performance,” explained Joan López. By promoting women and hiring them into technical roles in the water sector, USAID is supporting INAPA in becoming a leading voice for gender equality in the Dominican Republic.
About this Story
Alec Jacobson from TetraTech and Brenda Silverio from USAID in the Dominican Republic contributed to this story.