Renewable energy (RE) will play a significant role in Indonesia’s future and the continued growth of the sector will create more and more jobs for a variety of skilled professionals. At the moment, however, there is a gender disparity in the RE workforce: women's participation in the RE sector is often characterized as limited to household consumption only, and not associated with planning, policymaking, technical work, or management. This is apparent in senior vocational schools, where the percentage of female students studying renewable energy technology (RET) is still low.

The Indonesian government's target of using 23% of renewable energy (RE) in the country's total energy use will open up significant employment opportunities in this area. However, the involvement of women in this field is still very much lacking. Therefore more effort is needed to encourage women's participation in the RE field and to change perceptions about gender roles in the RE sector, as delivered by Happy Sukmawati, lecturer of solar energy technology, and Sufiani, a vocational school student on renewable energy.

The United States Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia, Joseph Donovan, visited Lombok on May 17, 2017, for a dialogue with grantees of MCA-Indonesia’s Green Prosperity Project as well as with the Governor of NTB, Zainul Majdi. Six grantees including PEKA SINERGI shared their project progress, MCA-Indonesia’s role in improving the livelihoods of the people of NTB, and their sustainability plans for the post- Compact period in April 2018.

Mataram, 8 March 2017 - Sixty vocational high school teachers from Lombok were given introductory training on renewable energy topics by experts from the Technical Education Development Centre, Bandung (TEDC Bandung) and the University of Mataram (UNRAM). The teachers were split into groups according to four renewable 'themes' -- solar, wind, hydro and bioenergy -- and matched with experts who discussed a range of topics including renewable energy sources, energy conversion, and the installation, operations and maintenance of specific technologies.

Jakarta, 1 February 2017 – PEKA SINERGI brought together public and private sector stakeholders for a roundtable discussion on the supply and demand of skilled labour for renewable energy jobs, and the evolving role of vocational education in Indonesia’s RE labour market.