Ring the bell
DoTheDream Youth Development Initiative (DoTheDream YDI), a Nigerian-founded youth development and gender-equity organisation with consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), has appointed Dr. Omopeju Afanu as Chairperson of the Planning Committee for its High-Level Side Event at the 70th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70).
The appointment positions Dr. Afanu to lead a USD 20 million catalytic and blended finance mobilization effort focused on advancing energy justice, gender equality, and sustainable development across Africa. The CSW70 engagement is structured as a donor- and investor-facing platform to accelerate financing for DoTheDream YDI’s flagship Girls in Energy initiative.
The High-Level Side Event, “Catalyzing Energy Justice: Energizing Communities Through Girls/Women and Sport,” will take place in New York during CSW70 and convene UN agencies, Permanent Missions, development finance institutions, impact investors, climate funds, philanthropic organisations, private-sector clean energy companies, and civil society leaders. The platform is designed to convert global policy commitments into deployable capital, bankable partnerships, and scalable implementation pathways.
Across Africa, energy poverty remains a critical barrier to inclusive economic growth. Millions of households and small businesses lack reliable electricity, limiting education outcomes, healthcare delivery, digital inclusion, and women-led entrepreneurship. Women and girls continue to bear a disproportionate burden of unreliable energy access, reinforcing inequality and constraining economic participation.
DoTheDream YDI’s Girls in Energy programme responds to this challenge by integrating skills development, leadership training, and employment pathways for girls and young women with community-scale renewable energy deployment.
The initiative ensures that clean energy access delivers measurable impact, including improved learning environments, functional health facilities, increased enterprise productivity, and sustainable local job creation.
A central pillar of the programme is a 10MW solar mini-grid pipeline targeting underserved communities. The USD 20 million catalytic capital mobilized through CSW70 will support project preparation, technical feasibility, community engagement, safeguarding and inclusion frameworks, and local capacity building.
This approach de-risks early-stage delivery, accelerates deployment, and unlocks follow-on public and private co-financing, strengthening long-term financial sustainability.
As a Canada-based financial and business development advisor, Dr. Afanu brings cross-market expertise in capital structuring, stakeholder alignment, and impact-driven investment strategy. In her role as Chair of the Planning Committee, she will guide investment positioning and donor alignment, lead engagement with capital partners and strategic stakeholders, strengthen programme governance and delivery coherence, and ensure outcome tracking aligned with SDG and ESG frameworks.
Her leadership ensures that the CSW70 engagement functions not merely as a convening, but as a capital formation and execution platform aligned with Global South development priorities and international investor expectations.
Founder of DoTheDream YDI, Adebusuyi Olutayo Olumadewa, described the appointment as a strategic milestone, noting that the CSW70 platform is expected to generate anchor donor commitments, blended-finance partnerships, and scalable clean energy investment pipelines, reinforcing Africa’s role in shaping an inclusive, gender-responsive, and investable global energy future.
