Post by Oghenegare Eyankware

Last week was one of those weeks that makes you sit back and think, "Wait… did that actually just happen?" I wrapped up my role as a Research Fellow at the Regional Academy on the United Nations (RAUN), and let me tell you, standing in the OSCE office in Vienna presenting our research paper, then heading to the United Nations in Vienna with my colleagues to officially complete our Academy, that was not something I had on my 2025 bingo card when I joined back in October. For the past several months, I've been working alongside three brilliant researchers, Anna Thaler, Sophie O., and Greta Sievert, under the mentorship of Gorica Atanasova-Gjorevska from the OSCE. Together, we dove headfirst into a question that sounds academic but is deeply urgent: what happens when you build #energysecurity policy and forget half the population? Our paper, "Fifty Years of the OSCE: Advancing the #EnergySecurity Agenda and the Inclusion of #Gender-Responsive Approaches," uncovered something that shouldn't surprise anyone but still does: Women manage the majority of household energy in rural #CentralAsia, yet they're virtually invisible in the policies designed to secure it. Gender-responsive #energy projects don't just advance equality; they build decentralised #resilience against the very geopolitical shocks keeping leaders up at night. The question isn't whether we can afford to include women in the #energytransition, it's whether we can afford not to. Beyond our own research, I got to learn from the incredible work of fellow Academy colleagues such as Eva Brigos Barril, Sady Roberto Rodriguez Avila, Pablo García Pérez, Ansha Henna Nazeer, Ghozaly Ghiandi Amna, Fiona M., Michele Giovanni Di Rado, Amber Agyemang, Barbara Zelu, Emma Company Masó, Alvaro Arrieta Valle, Xiang(Peter) H., Sophia Pascher, Lotte Henk C., Joaquim Waltarcio Dos Santos Manuel and Kamelia Krassi Hadjieva, the list goes on!, tackling equally critical questions across international development. The calibre of thinking in that room? Genuinely humbling. And then there was the networking, real conversations, not the "let's circle back" kind. Sitting down with UN officials such as Abdul-Wadudu Adam Mohammed, Giulia Vaglietti, Okoth Kong'ong'o and Philip Novaković exchanging ideas, and walking away with that rare feeling of being both challenged and energised. Those are the conversations that stay with you. A massive thank you to Regional Academy on the United Nations (RAUN) team, Billy Batware, Mariia Kostetckaia and everyone of the team for opening the door to share our work at this level. Tengi George-Ikoli Oke Epia...