Concepts and issues in gender and energy

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CONCEPTS AND ISSUES IN
GENDER AND ENERGY
COMPILED BY
Beatrice Khamati-Njenga
Consultant in energy, environment and development
P. O. Box 70057, Nairobi, Kenya
Phone +254 722 744518
E-mail: beanjenga@yahoo.co.uk
and
Joy Clancy
Technology and Development Group
University of Twente
PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-53-4893537
E-mail: j.s.clancy@utwente.nl
For
ENERGIA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank ENERGIA for the financial support to write this paper.
Part of Joy Clancy’s time was funded by the University of Twente as part of a joint
collaboration with the Technology and Development Group and ENERGIA in the
development of a training manual on gender and energy (The Gender Face of Energy).
This paper forms the basis of parts of the training material developed for the manual.
In addition, many thanks are due to a number of people who reviewed a draft of the paper
and gave valuable comments:
Elizabeth Cecelski
Wendy Annecke
Dev Nathan
Kyoko Kusakabe
Margaret Skutsch
Sheila Oparaocha
Govind Kelkar

CONCEPTS AND ISSUES IN
GENDER AND ENERGY
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 5
2 WHAT IS GENDER? ................................................................................................. 5
2.1 Complexity of the Gender Construct and its Relevance to Development .......... 8
3 WHY USE GENDER IN ENERGY? ......................................................................... 8
4 UNDERSTANDING GENDER NEEDS AND INTERESTS: THE USE OF
GENDER ANALYSIS............................................................................................... 11
4.1 Triple Role ........................................................................................................ 13
4.2 Practical versus Strategic Gender Needs/Interests............................................ 13
4.3 The Value of Gender Analysis in Development ............................................... 16
5 GENDER APPROACHES ....................................................................................... 17
5.1 Historical Development of Gender Approaches in Development .................... 17
5.2 Evolution of Thinking on Gender and Energy.................................................. 24
5.3 Gender Goals in Energy Project Planning ........................................................ 29
6 CONCLUDING REMARKS TO PART I................................................................ 34
7 GENDER ANALYSIS OF ENERGY NEEDS ........................................................ 35
7.1 Household Energy is a Woman’s Concern? ..................................................... 38
8 ENERGY AND WOMEN'S HEALTH AND SAFETY .......................................... 39
8.1 The Fuel Cycle: Bad for Women’s Health ....................................................... 39
8.2 Energy Improving Women’s Health................................................................. 40
9 ENERGY IMPROVING WOMEN’S LIVES .......................................................... 41
9.1 Reducing Drudgery; Saving Time .................................................................... 41
9.2 Energy for Cooking........................................................................................... 44
9.3 Electricity Improving Women’s Lives.............................................................. 45
9.4 Improved Transport for Women ....................................................................... 47
10 ENERGY ENABLING WOMEN IN INCOME GENERATION........................ 49
10.1 Energy for Women’s Productive Enterprises ................................................... 49
10.2 Promoting Women as Energy Entrepreneurs.................................................... 52
10.3 Promoting the Role of Women in the Energy Sector: Career Development .... 55
11 ENGENDERING ENERGY................................................................................. 58
11.1 Financial Barriers.............................................................................................. 59
11.2 Capacity Building and Training........................................................................ 61
11.3 A Gender Sensitive Energy Policy Environment.............................................. 63
11.4 Information ....................................................................................................... 66
11.5 Technology Meeting Women’s Needs.............................................................. 67
12 EMERGING ISSUES ........................................................................................... 69
12.1 Gender, Energy and Poverty ............................................................................. 69
12.2 Gender, Household Energy and Privatisation of the Energy Sector................. 70
12.3 Gender, Energy and Climate Change................................................................ 72
13 CONCLUDING REMARKS TO PART II........................................................... 75
14 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................. 76

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Examples of energy projects to address women's needs and interests using
different gender analytical frameworks .................................................................... 16
Table 2: Overview of the meaning of gender goals.......................................................... 23
Table 3: Millennium Development Goals - goals and targets related to energy and gender
................................................................................................................................... 26
Table 4: An example of how the gender-energy nexus can target most of the Millennium
Development Goals................................................................................................... 28
Table 5: Time allocation to survival activities among women and men (hours per day). 42
Table 6: Degree, diploma and certificate awards in energy related subjects in federal
universities of Nigeria disaggregated by gender....................................................... 56
Table 7: Capacity building needs for mainstreaming gender in energy ........................... 63
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CONCEPTS AND ISSUES IN GENDER AND ENERGY
Part I: The Concepts
1 INTRODUCTION
This paper was commissioned by ENERGIA in response to a request by network
members for a clearer understanding of gender concepts and how these manifest
themselves in the energy sector. The paper also identifies some key issues of how energy
plays a role in transforming women’s lives. The paper is divided into two sections: the
first section defines gender concepts and places them in the context of the energy sector,
while the second section describes issues of gender and energy.
2 WHAT IS GENDER?
Gender is a concept which refers to a system of socially defined roles, privileges,
attributes and relationships between men and women which are learned and not
biologically determined. Gender roles shape our identity, determining how we are
perceived, how we are expected to think and act as women and men. It is possible to
identify some gender roles for which the rationale is biologically based, they are
perceived as natural. The practical aspects of child rearing (for example, washing and
feeding children) is one role expected of women in most societies primarily because
women bear children, although both women and men take part in the socialisation of
children imparting society’s norms and values and ways of behaving. However, more
often, gender roles are determined and prescribed by strongly held cultural and religious
traditions. Gender roles are not universal, they vary in degree from society to society,
which reinforces the point that gender roles are not determined by nature but by the social
environment in which a person is raised. Because gender roles are socially constructed,
they are subject to change in response to changes in social-economic circumstances,
natural and man made disasters such as droughts and war, technological development,
education and so on. In other words, gender roles are generally dynamic, they change
with time. It is not only different communities that define gender roles differently but
also different people in the same community can see gender roles in different ways. For
example, in low income households, it is usually the wife who does the cooking, while in
wealthy households, the task may be allocated to someone else, either another female
relative or a paid servant. This example shows that gender roles are also influenced by
other economic and social factors such as income, caste, and ethnicity.
The term gender norms is linked to gender roles and is generally used to mean ‘socially
accepted gender roles’, in other words society’s ideas of acceptable behaviour for women
and men. Along with these roles come certain rights and obligations for women and men
based on cooperation and support. Within a household men and women are able to
negotiate to some extent what their rights, benefits and obligations are as regards carrying
out certain duties or tasks. These negotiations can also be about conflict over and
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competition for resources. However, these negotiations do not usually take place
between equals. In most societies, men have more power than women to make decisions
about and exercise control over their own lives and resources. This balance of power
between men and women defines the relationship between the genders. The effects of
differences in power operate at all levels in society: household, community,
organisational, national and international. Gender relations, like gender roles, are
socially determined and are influenced by the same factors. An analysis based on gender
relations differs from one based on gender roles because it gives more focus to power
relations and the connections between men and women’s lives. The use of gender roles as
an analytical concept can be restrictive since it is descriptive and fails to recognise the
way gender is constructed and enforced in society.
Case 1: Gender roles in rural Tanzania.
A Gender relations study was carried out in Korogwe Village in Tanzania by the
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme, with the purpose of raising gender awareness.
Female respondents considered cooking as “the most remarkable non-traditional role
that could be performed by men”, followed by fetching water and lastly fetching
firewood. Male respondents on the other hand viewed men fetching firewood as the most
remarkable change in gender roles, followed by men drawing water(TGNP, 1996).
The negotiations between men and women that take place in the household result in an
informal arrangement, but if this were a legal matter, it might be called a ‘contract’.
Therefore the term gender contracts is used to describe how the relationship in
households between men and women is shaped and enforced, and the term can also be
applied in a wider context of the society in which they live. This ‘contract’ is an invisible
agreement which determines how men and women should behave and the sort of
sanctions society “imposes” on those who break the gender contract. The gender contract
is not a contract negotiated between equals but one in which one of the partners (usually
the man) holds and can exercise more power than the other (usually the woman). In a
development context the concept has been used to analyse men and women’s ownership,
access and control over property. The modern legal system usually gives men and women
equal rights of ownership and inheritance. However, traditional systems often grant other
types of rights, for example, women might not be able to inherit property. These two
systems are often found operating in parallel in a community and this can lead to tensions
and conflict, as women try to assert their right under the “modern” system.
For an energy planner, it is important to understand prescribed gender roles and relations
in their context since these affect people’s access to and control over resources, and their
participation in decision-making. Sometimes, a project can require participants to act in
ways that are contrary to their gender roles. This can result in resistance by intended
beneficiaries to get involved as can be seen from the fuelwood project in Kenya (Case 2).
Case 2: Women constrained by gender roles.
In the Kakamega area of Kenya a shortage in fuelwood meant that the women had to
walk long distances to collect firewood. This situation inspired a project to encourage the
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women in the village to plant trees. The men in the village already planted trees in the
surroundings, but these trees were meant to be sold as timber.
Project planners visited the area and offered the women seedling if fast growing trees for
firewood to plant on their fields. However, the women refused. They could not plant trees,
because women are not allowed to plant trees while their husbands are alive. Their
husbands own the land and it would be disrespectful to plant trees on their land. Planting
trees is a man’s task (Bradley, 1991).
The case from Kenya demonstrates that it is difficult both for men and for women to go
against the gender roles in their community. Even though, in this case, it would relieve
the women’s tasks, the women didn’t accept planting trees because they found it not
appropriate within their community.
As was pointed out above, gender roles, contracts and relations are not static but change
over time; moreover they can actively be encouraged to change, and many groups are
working to change them at local, national and international levels. Others do not wish
these things to change, because they see them as part of the culture and tradition of the
society in which they live. It is sometimes thought that traditional, rural societies are
difficult to change in this regard, but that modern, urban society is more open to changes
in gender roles and relations. However, education and contact with foreign cultures does
not always imply more openness and tolerance to changing gender roles, as is illustrated
by a case study from India. In case study 3 acceptance or rejection of non-traditional
gender roles clearly has less to do with education and exposure (forest department
officials are educated and relatively exposed to external cultures), but more to do with
intrinsic dynamics within the local community.
Case study 3: Resistance to changing gender roles.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests noted that forests in India had suffered serious
depletion and initiated a programme whereby village communities and NGO’s would
participate in regeneration, management and protection of degraded forests. The
programme- Joint Forest Management (JFM), had special features for providing people
with access to, and control over forest resources; and attempting to involve women
substantively in resource management. Community Organisations called VSS were
formed, in which every household was represented by one man and one woman. A VSS
had to have at least 30% representation by women.
In reality, it turned out that in the regions where JFM was operating, most women were
unaware of the programme; most VSS committees had less than 30% women;
participation in the labour force was equal between the men and the women, but women
were paid less than men even for the same work.
Following a study to explain the discrepancies, it was found that an overwhelming
majority of the ‘grassroots’ male members of VSS had no objection to equal participation
by women, equal wages for equal work, and even to accepting suggestions made by
women. The men however expressed some concern about sending women away for
training, because they were concerned about the women’s safety and because they felt
that women needed to be around to take care of young children. Surprisingly, when asked
similar questions, men among Forest Department officials, NGO staff and wealthier men
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in the village were of the general view that forest management was men’s work.
(Suryakumari, 2001).
An example from Ghana on the other hand, demonstrates a successful change in gender
contracts.
Case study 4: Successfully changing gender roles.
A study was carried out by Dorm-Adzobu and Ampadu-Agyei on an agro-forestry project
in Ghana’s Volta region. The project has helped to transform an infertile region into
productive farmlands through various sustainable agro-forestry practices. The farms are
communally owned. Some of the proceeds from the farms are ploughed back into
community activities while the rest is divided equally among members, including men and
women.
Women also work with men on the community farms. The gender division of labour has
not changed. But many women have their own farms. Every villager has a stake in the
sustainability of the land. The era when it was men’s exclusive responsibility to initiate or
spearhead development has passed. In the project area, the natural resources, be they
rivers, soils or trees, are managed by all.
While it is admitted that women have some traditional family roles, ‘unjustifiable built-in
gender roles’ which relegate women to the background or the kitchen are strongly
rejected. (Sigot et al, 1995)
2.1 Complexity of the Gender Construct and its Relevance to Development
Not all see gender as a core issue deserving of distinction among the many issues that
affect human fairness and efficiency in development. Gender inequality has to be seen as
a part of broader issues of social, cultural and economic inequalities. Furthermore, gender
cannot be addressed without reference to the other inequalities. Gender is not just a
binary condition, but is graduated by affluence and poverty; age; marital status; caste
systems and other cultures and traditions. Not all women are poor, and not all poor are
women. Not all women are disadvantaged.
It is important to recognise that different groups of women may have very different needs
in a given society. In communities where there is a strong division (for example based on
class, caste or ethnicity), the needs and the capacity to meet those needs of the poor
women will be quite different from those of the rich. One cannot assume that all women
have the same problems. Nor should one assume that gender is the only basis for
disadvantage. However, by taking gender into account, unexpected insights and solutions
can emerge that would be missed by using standard planning approaches. The next
section looks at the implications of not using a gender approach in energy planning.
3 WHY USE GENDER IN ENERGY?
Energy is a prime ingredient in all productive, subsistence and leisure activity. The
quantity and quality of available energy determines the efficiency and effectiveness of
activities, as well as the quality of life of the users. As such, both male and female
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members of society are equal stakeholders in benefiting from energy use. However, all
too often women and men do not benefit equally from access to energy. The same
energy service may indeed impact on men and women differently, with different social or
economic outcomes. It is not only the gender division of labour which creates different
energy needs, but there are also different perceptions of the benefits of energy and the
capacities to access those benefits based on gender. For example, men may choose to
locate a light outside the house for security reasons (such as protecting livestock from
theft) while women may choose to locate the light in the kitchen. An evaluation of the
distribution of the benefits of a micro-hydro scheme in rural Sri Lanka found that in
connected households, men and women had equal (but different) benefits from the energy
services provided by electricity (mainly TV and lighting) (Dhanapala (1995) quoted in
Barnett (2000)). However, it was the unconnected households where there was unequal
distribution of benefits. These households benefited by access to TV (by visiting
neighbours with sets) and the possibility of hiring lights for special occasions. It was the
men who had greater access to TV because they had greater freedom of movement,
particularly at night.
Why has energy planning not addressed women and men’s needs equally? Until recently,
the energy sector in development plans referred to large-scale, capital-intensive
technology projects designed to provide energy for growth in the formal sectors of the
economy of cash crops and mechanised production, which are primarily a man’s
domain
1
. Almost totally excluded from this definition are small-scale, management-
intensive activities done primarily by women using their own muscle power or local
natural resources, for both family subsistence and small-scale income activities, usually
in the informal sector. Thus household energy-consuming activities like food processing,
water procurement, transportation of water and fuel, and so on are generally not
considered in energy planning. The said activities are almost exclusively within women’s
gender roles in many societies. It happens that participation of women in energy use is
overwhelmingly at the small-scale, traditional level, hence their relative exclusion. Poor
men are also subject to exclusion because they cannot afford entry into the larger-scale
energy-use sector.
The traditional approach to energy in development policy and planning has assumed
gender neutrality. It has assumed that a good energy policy, programme or project will
benefit both male and female equally in meeting practical needs. It has assumed that any
differences in the needs and capacities of men and women do not affect the extent to
which they benefit from and contribute to energy development and use. What we find in
reality is that energy planning is gender-blind, that it fails to recognise that needs of men
and women are different. The consequences of gender-blind policies are that they tend to
exclude women and do not change gender relations.
Traditional planning approaches view communities in terms of ‘households’ rather than
men, women and children, or any other social-cultural distinctions within households.
Thus in evaluating impacts, a programme is assumed to have been successful when
1
The electronic goods sector in South and South East Asia is a notable exception where women
predominate as employees.
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households have benefited eg by acquiring modern mechanised tools for agriculture cash
crop production has increased and overall household income has increased. Closer,
gender disaggregated scrutiny however may reveal that whereas the household produces
more food, and men have reduced drudgery and increased performance in their farm
work, the situation for women has not necessarily improved and may have deteriorated.
Case 5: Lack of gender analysis in project planning – increasing women's burden.
Mechanisation of ploughing, organised through credit programmes open to men, has led
to increased cash returns for affected households. The increased cash is invariably
controlled by male heads of the households. At the same time it has brought longer
working hours for the women, who are responsible for the non-mechanised tasks such as
weeding and harvesting, now on the larger areas cultivated by the machines. Women are
not able to obtain credit for machinery to carry out their own tasks both because they do
not have collateral and because the agricultural product is the property of the men.
Critics argue that projects resulting in 'unexpected' disadvantages such as increased
workload for women are the result of failure to carry out adequate gender analysis
during project preparation (Cecelski, 2000).
Assumed gender neutrality in energy policies has led to the virtual exclusion of women’s
needs, as well as their potential contributions in energy. In attempts to redress this issue,
in more recent decades, attention is increasingly being paid to women in national energy
policies. In most cases such attention has been confined to household energy, as women
are usually the chief cooks and main procurers of household fuel. In developing
countries, the main fuel for cooking is biomass in its traditional form, including cow-
dung, firewood and charcoal. Thus where attention has been paid to women in national
energy policies, the focus has tended to be confined to traditional biomass energy
concerns. But women have other needs and capacities in energy. The productive activities
in which women engage also use energy, usually human and often biomass energy.
It must be noted, however, that increased attention to women’s needs is not being
matched with increased investment in meeting these needs. For example, funding for
stoves programmes has declined, partly due to donor fatigue amidst many failed stove
projects. Furthermore, gender as a development issue is still much misunderstood
amongst senior politicians and bureaucrats charged with development and
implementation of energy policy, both at the international and national levels.
In the conventional energy paradigm, women have not necessarily been excluded
intentionally or their energy-related activities overlooked; they have simply been defined
out of the energy sector. Since the mid 1990s, there has been a growing advocacy lobby
for more gender-aware energy policies, programmes and projects. Such policies would
recognise that women as well as men are participants in development, however, the
nature of their participation is determined by their gender relations. Gender-aware
policies and projects recognise that women have different interests, needs and priorities
which may sometimes conflict with those of men. For example, a solar water-pumping
project would ensure that there was tapped water for drinking (women’s practical need)
and for irrigation (men’s practical need).
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Gender-aware policies and projects can be achieved by taking a “gender approach” to
energy planning. A 'gender approach to energy' does not imply targeting projects and
programmes to women, (although such programmes could also be included). What is
meant by a 'gender approach' is that all energy programmes and projects, of whatever
kind - from local fuelwood programmes up to the construction of hydroelectric power
stations - should be analysed for the impact they are likely to have on men and women.
The motivation for using a gender approach is generally that women have, in the past, not
been recognised as a separate group in most sectors of energy planning, that is planning
has been gender blind.
4 UNDERSTANDING GENDER NEEDS AND INTERESTS: THE USE OF
GENDER ANALYSIS
Gender experts use a number of different ways to analyse gender roles and relationships.
Gender analysis asks questions, in relation to men and women, about who is doing what,
who owns what, who makes decisions about what and how, who gains and loses by a
planned intervention. Gender analysis examines what is happening within the household
and makes linkages with the different levels of the wider society.
Gender analysis is not about looking at women alone, nor is it about complaining that
women suffer more than men, but rather gender is about reaching a better understanding
of how communities work from the perspective of relationships between men and
women. Gender interests are not always obvious, neither are potential impacts of energy
interventions. Sometimes inappropriate interventions are made because they are made on
the basis of assumptions. For example, the emphasis in energy planning for the benefit of
women has long concentrated around cooking, with firewood collection being seen as the
central problem to be tackled. However, our increased understanding of gender and
energy issues (see Section 5.2) has shown that equating women’s needs solely with
cooking is a very narrow interpretation and misses many aspects related to energy needs
and the benefits that can be derived from access to energy services. Issues related to
cooking are also more complex than initially realised. Men can get involved in fuelwood
collection and do make decisions about stove purchases. Women are also involved in
more activities than cooking.
Gender analysis is carried out using gender analytic tools. Gender analytic tools are
systematic frameworks for diagnosing the existing gender situation in a given
community, or for assessing what the impact of an intervention such as an energy project
is likely to be, on men and on women. A framework is a system of ideas or conceptual
structures that help understand the social world. It is important to recognise that a
framework is based on certain assumptions about the nature of the social world, how it
works, and how people behave. The framework also reflects how a problem is defined,
the kinds of questions to be asked in any analysis, and the type of solutions likely to be
proposed to solve the problem. Hence, there can exist more than one framework to
analyse a particular problem because people make different assumptions about a
particular situation. Frameworks compete with each other and often one framework is
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used more at a particular point in time.
Gender analytical tools are intended first to draw attention to gender inequalities in a
given community, and second to be an early warning system identifying gender problems
that may arise if an energy initiative is started within the community. Carrying out a
gender analysis of a planned energy intervention will be useful in order to understand the
following:
Needs: to identify different needs of men and women that will help them to achieve more
sustainable livelihood strategies;
Constraints to participation: to highlight the different responsibilities of men and
women that might constrain their participation in an energy project;
Ability to participate: to understand different stakeholders’ capacity to participate in any
given intervention, e.g. given differential levels of education or autonomy.
Different benefits from participation: to determine the different ways in which men
and women do, or do not benefit from particular energy interventions (adapted from
Pasteur, 2002).
Gender tools are used during various stages of project or programme planning (problem
definition, needs assessment, design of intervention, evaluation), although some could be
applied in other contexts also, for example in evaluating policy. Their purpose is to
ensure that differences between the genders are not inadvertently overlooked, and that
any project choices that are made, are made with full recognition of what the differential
effects are likely to be on men and on women (Skutsch, 2004). Gender tools are simple
ways of gathering and arranging data so that gender differences are made clear to the
outside observer, with a view to increasing the rationality of project decision making,
though they can also have an effect within the community itself, by raising gender
differences as a matter for discussion. The idea is that they should be used during the
normal process of planning, so that gender is ‘mainstreamed’, that is to say, taken as one
of the basic underlying factors that are taken into account in every planning exercise.
There are many gender tools which are commonly used by development planners, for
example the Harvard matrix and the Gender Assessment Matrix. These can be found
widely in literature on gender and development and are usually taught in gender courses.
However, Skutsch (2004) considers that these tools are not very helpful for energy
planning. She cites two reasons. First, standard gender tools give no direct guidance on
how to determine achieving desired developments to address gender issues. Secondly,
they do not ask some very simple questions: What forms of energy do women use, for
what activities? What forms of energy do men use, for what activities? What kinds of
energy would increase women’s welfare, increase their productivity, and help empower
them? And how do I need to design my project to ensure that women have some say over
the outcomes? Skutsch has therefore developed a set of gender tools specifically for use
in the energy sector
2
.
2
These tools are being developed with support from ENERGIA and when the tools are finalized it will be
possible to download them from the ENERGIA website. www.energia.org
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In this section, two of the most commonly encountered gender analytical frameworks are
described: the triple role and practical versus strategic needs/interests. Indications are
given of the types of gender and energy issues that can be addressed within the
frameworks.
4.1 Triple Role
One of the first attempts at gender analysis was based on the gender division of labour
and divides tasks for men and women into three main social-economic areas:
reproductive, productive and community. This framework is known as the triple role.
Reproductive
This refers to all tasks undertaken to reproduce the labour force and includes child
bearing and rearing, feeding the family, caring for the sick, teaching acceptable behaviour
and so on. Here energy interventions would be to reduce drudgery, save time and
generally improve standards of living.
Productive
This covers work done for payment in cash or in kind. It includes the production of goods
and services for subsistence or market purposes. Energy interventions in the area of
productivity activities would include increasing efficiency, reducing drudgery and
transporting goods and people.
Community tasks
Community tasks are those done not for individual family gain but for the wellbeing of
the community or society: charitable work, self-help communal construction of village
facilities, sitting on village committees, involvement in religious activities, visiting
friends who need help and so on. For women their community tasks are often seen as an
extension of their reproductive roles. Electricity can play an important role in improving
communication systems (computer, telephone) and providing lighting for both buildings
and streets, thus allowing meetings in the evenings. Transport will help people move
around more easily.
Of course these categories are not entirely watertight: there are fuzzy lines between them.
For example, someone who runs in an election for a political position - is that community
work or productive?
Women are involved in tasks in all the three main areas, which means that they are often
expected to do a full day's work raising crops or working outside the home, plus
housework and child-raising, plus community obligations. Men are mainly involved in
productive and community tasks.
4.2 Practical versus Strategic Gender Needs/Interests
Another analytical approach considers that gender roles have different assigned tasks
which have different needs, including energy, to be met. These needs are divided into
practical and strategic. They are always context specific, which means they depend on
local circumstances and are influenced also by variables like age and civil status.
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The words “needs” and “interests” are used somewhat interchangeably. However, there
has been some debate amongst gender specialists as to whether or not they have different
implications. If women are recognised to actively define their own demands, then some
consider the use of the term “needs” in planning to give the wrong inference. The
implication is that women are passive recipients of assistance, whereas the term
“interests” is considered by some to be more active and hence more representative of the
way women behave
3
.
Practical needs:
Interventions to meet practical needs aim to make women’s and men’s lives easier and
more pleasant, but do not challenge the accustomed tasks and roles of women and men in
the household or in society, or their gender relations. That is to say, they do not upset the
traditional balance of power and authority between men and women. They are needs
primarily related to activities that keep the household running and the families daily
survival ensured, which can also include improving household income. In this
framework, practical needs are an amalgamation of practical and productive needs in the
triple role framework. This is not surprising given that many of women’s income
generating activities are carried out in the household and are actually based on practical
household tasks, such as cooking and sewing, and are carried out in parallel with their
household responsibilities.
Examples of energy services to meet practical needs are household lights (which can also
extend working hours for income generation), improved cooking stoves for household
use, improved supply of fuelwood for household use etc.
Strategic interests:
Strategic interests are those which relate to women changing their position in society and
which help them gain more equality with men, and transform gender relations. Men also
have strategic interests, for example, they wish to avoid conscription into a militia or they
may resist women’s attempts to transform gender relations.
Women’s strategic needs are generally to do with addressing issues related to laws and
gender contracts which tend to be biased against women. For example, in many societies
certain groups of women (widows, divorcees, and abandoned wives) suffer economic
deprivation as a result of their civil status, based on traditional or modern legal codes:
their property can be removed from them by male relatives. In this context, a strategic
need is to improve the status of women, for example, through laws which give women
and men equal rights, and enforcement of these laws, which establishes their rights to
land and other property. Other strategic needs for women may include laws on
inheritance so that daughters have equal rights with sons, for example, and prohibiting
violence against women. In most countries there are such laws but they are not always
enforced. Some see these institutional approaches to addressing women’s strategic
needs as too long term and look for other solutions which will bring changes in women’s
societal status more quickly. For example, women earning an income through an
3
Kabeer (1994) quoted in March, Smyth and Mukhopadhyay (1999)
14

enterprise (such as a battery charging business) have been found to increase their status,
accompanied by greater influence in decision making and control over resources, within
their family and community.
Examples of energy services that meet women's strategic needs are street lights enabling
women to participate in the village council, radio and T.V. increasing women's
knowledge and improving their self-esteem and confidence.
Blurred boundaries between roles, interests and needs:
It is important to realize that the boundaries between these needs are not fixed. What is a
practical need in one case may well be a strategic issue in another. For example, in a
society where women regularly run small businesses, such as in many West African
societies, provision of electricity to replace kerosene in the women’s shops could be seen
as a productive need – one that improves the functioning of the enterprise. In another
society, the provision of such electricity might for the first time open up the possibility of
a small enterprise, in which case it could be seen as a strategic issue.
Case study 6 describes a project in rural Mali which addresses not only the practical and
productive needs of women, but also their strategic interests. Their daily tasks, which
used to take a lot of human energy, have been relieved (i.e. their practical needs have
been met). Additionally, they are able to produce new, better and more products to gain
income (thus meeting their productive needs). Finally, the creation of a decentralized
energy enterprise owned and managed by women generates strong dynamics for
structural transformation, in a setting where land and agricultural assets are traditionally
owned by men and tasks are performed by women as unpaid obligations to men. The
enterprises enable women to change their position in society and therefore also serve to
meet strategic interests of the women.
Case study 6: Addressing multiple needs through income generation.
In Mali the Multipurpose Platform Project provides decentralized energy to rural areas
in response to requests from women’s associations in the villages. The fundamental
energy need for poor rural women in Mali is to find appropriate and affordable
substitutes for their own energy, so that they can engage in activities that generate
income, and that provide benefits for themselves and their families.
The platform consists of a small diesel engine mounted on a chassis, to which a variety of
end use equipment can be attached, including grinding mills, battery chargers, vegetable
or nut presses, welding machines etc. It can also support a mini grid for lighting and
electric pumps for a small water distribution network or irrigation system. The goal of
the project is to install 450 such platforms. Through these platforms it is expected that
approximately 8,000 women in rural areas will have access to improved opportunities for
improved micro-enterprises. Increased income generating activities are anticipated
(Burn & Coche, 2001).
15

Table 1: Examples of energy projects to address women's needs and interests using
different gender analytical frameworks
(Source: Clancy, Skutsch, and Batchelor, 2002)
Women’s needs and interests
Practical needs Productive needs Community tasks
Energy Form
Practical interests Strategic interests
Electricity
 Pumping water
supplies - reducing
need to haul and
carry
 mills for grinding
 lighting improves
working conditions
at home
 increase possibility
of activities during
evening hours
 provide refrigeration
for food production
and sale
 power for specialised
enterprises such as
hairdressing and
internet cafes
 make streets safer
allowing
participation in other
activities (e.g.
evening classes and
women’s group
meetings)
 opening horizons
through radio, TV
and internet
Improved
biomass (supply
and conversion
technology)
 improved health
through better stoves
 less time and effort
in gathering and
carrying firewood
 more time for
productive activities
 lower cost for
process heat for
income generating
activities
 control of natural
forests in community
forestry management
frameworks.
Mechanical
 milling and grinding
 transport and
portering of water
and crops
 increases variety of
enterprises
 transport allowing
access to commercial
and social/political
opportunities
Table 1 gives some examples of how different energy forms can meet women’s different
needs or interests for the two different frameworks.
4.3 The Value of Gender Analysis in Development
Gender analysis is seeking to understand the differentiated development needs and pre-
dispositions of men and women. It enables an understanding of the existing gender
situation, before and after intervention. Hence gender analysis involves gathering
information on the social-cultural roles and activities of men and women in households
and communities. Through gender analysis, an assessment of access to and control over
resources; and exploration of the situational factors affecting gender distinction are also
facilitated as these factors can support or constrain implementation of development/-
energy projects. Analysing men and women separately is important but not enough. The
second stage of the analysis must involve inter-relating these roles, needs, and so on and
explicitly examining the way they operate in tandem (or otherwise) at the household,
community and maybe national levels. Gender analysis enables planners and other
stakeholders to assess the impact of an intervention on both male and female members of
households and communities. As has been stated earlier, assessment at the household or
community level without gender disaggregation can give a wrong picture. But so can
16

disaggregation without inter-relation.
5 GENDER APPROACHES
Gender approaches in development have been changing over time, as a result of changes
in the understanding of women’s problems, as well as the interplay between gender roles
in the household and elsewhere in society. This section first looks at how ideas about
gender in development have changed since the 1970’s and introduces the idea of gender
goals. The second part looks at how our thinking on gender and energy has developed
over the same period. Finally the third part looks at how gender goals can be addressed
in energy.
5.1 Historical Development of Gender Approaches in Development
The welfare approach
Colonialism had a particular negative effect on women since the colonial rulers had
assumed that all farmers and traders were men. As a consequence, agrarian reform
during the colonial period resulted in many women loosing land title rights they held
under traditional institutions. Until the early 1970s, women were not seen as a separate
stakeholder group but were defined in the context of their gender roles in the family.
Development projects were aimed at men and the assumption was that women as wives,
mothers and daughters would benefit from the economic improvements of their husbands
and fathers (a sort of “trickle down within the family” approach). Policies with women
as the target group focused on their roles within the family as wives and mothers and
improving family welfare, for example, by addressing maternal and child health,
childcare and nutrition. In 1970, the publication of the ground-breaking study by a
Danish Economist, Ester Boserup
4
, into the unrecognised contribution by women to the
economy through agricultural production, began to change perceptions about women’s
role in development. Boserup found that until then, development projects ignored
women. Training in new technology was offered to men since men “understood
machinery”. As a consequence, women’s technical knowledge did not develop, and their
access to new technology and possible employment was restricted. In other words,
women did not appear to be benefiting from development.
The ‘Women in Development’ approach (WID)
Building on Boserup’s findings and influenced by the rise of the women’s movement in
industrialised countries, women involved in development issues in the USA lobbied
policy makers to ensure that women in developing countries were not neglected by
development projects. So from 1973, the US Agency for International Development
Projects (USAID) aimed to help integrate women into the formal economy of their
country, which would lead to increased gender equality. Following on from this, the
United Nations declared 1975 the UN International Year for Women, and in 1976 the UN
announced a decade for Women. During this period, we begin to see international
development and donor agencies setting up special departments and designating staff to
deal specifically with development projects for women. Governments also begin to
4
Boserup E (1970), Women’s Role in Economic Development. New York: St Martin’s Press.
17

establish ministries dedicated to women’s affairs. This approach can be seen as women’s
development taking place separately from mainstream development. There was
considerable resistance to these developments from within development agencies and the
South.
Since this was very much a donor driven agenda, development was measured by the
adoption of Western technologies, institutions and values. Projects were to focus on
women, in particular their productive role, and so income generation projects were the
main output. The approach became known as Women in Development (WID). In order
to overcome resistance to projects focusing on women, at least amongst development
agency technocrats, it was argued that WID projects would improve women’s efficiency,
which would in turn contribute to economic development.
The WID approach has been criticised from a number of perspectives. In particular, by
concentrating on women’s productive role, it fails to address the underlying causes of
why and how women are marginalised. It does not address women’s position in the
household nor the influence of other factors, such as race and class, on women’s lives. In
other words, women were treated as a homogeneous group. Mainstream development
was unchanged and WID departments and projects suffered from under-funding.
Governments were seen as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Some
argued that trying to integrate women into development was a fallacy since women were
already part of development, a situation that appeared not to be recognised by male
dominated institutions. WID could also be considered top-down and imposed from
outside. Much of the WID literature does not recognise that women in the South were
active during this period, mainly working at the grassroots level through NGOs on
women’s concerns and a critique of WID began to emerge from these activists.
The women and development approach (WAD)
Towards the end of the 1970s, there emerged from out of these critiques by feminists in
the South, such as Lourdes Beneria and Gita Sen, an approach known as Women and
Development (WAD). The WAD perspective considered that the nature of women’s
inequality lay in patriarchal societies and institutions. If women were to benefit from
development and fulfil their needs, then this was best achieved through separate social
institutions for women and in women-only projects. The WAD perspective also stresses
the distinctiveness of women’s knowledge, work, responsibilities and goals. WAD
activists worked both at the grass roots level, particularly building women’s solidarity,
and at the development agency level trying to make them more responsive to women’s
needs. A major criticism of WAD has been that it has operated very much at the margins
of development, and that since women-only organisations tend to be small scale it limits
their transformative potential. As with WID, WAD has also been criticised for seeing
women as a homogeneous group.
The gender and development approach (GAD)
At the beginning of the 1980s, a new strand of thinking began to emerge which
considered that neither WID nor WAD explained why women continued to be
systematically assigned inferior or secondary roles. This is the time that the term
18

“gender” begins to appear in the development literature. This new perspective argued that
women’s inferior position is perpetuated not only because of material circumstances and
their social class but also because of patriarchal structures and ideas. Gender relations
are the key determinant of women’s position in society. These relations are socially
constructed and subject to change. Women’s experiences are shaped by a multitude of
factors including race, class, colonial history, and culture, in other words women do not
make up a homogeneous group. The gender and development perspective (GAD)
considers that women’s inequalities are also perpetuated by global inequalities. In
addition, women are not to be seen as passive recipients of development. Women are,
together with men, agents of change capable of contributing to development, as well as
defining and meeting their own needs.
GAD also distinguishes between women’s practical needs and their strategic interests.
The former relates to immediate needs, such as food, water, clothing, shelter, education,
and health care, while the latter relates to changing women’s social position in any given
culture. Strategic interests also relate to gender equality.
By the mid-1990s, most development agencies had changed their approach, at least in
name, from WID to GAD while the WAD approach was still found amongst grass roots
organisations. Many consider that in many multilateral and bilateral development
agencies, while using the term “gender” actually continued to practice WID approaches.
Some agencies adopted the term “gender” to reassure men that their needs were not being
overlooked or their position undermined by too great a focus on women! Some argued
from within development agencies that gender analysis which provides a better
understanding of men and women’s roles and responsibilities made for good economic
practice. It helped with better targeting and improved project efficiency and
effectiveness, as well as ensuring that women as well as men played a role in
development. This approach is known as the efficiency approach. However, groups
using gender analysis and participatory approaches to development at the grass roots
considered that an efficiency approach opened up opportunities to develop women’s
skills and self-esteem. In other words a GAD approach empowered women to determine
their own needs and bring change to their lives.
The term empowerment is much used and probably much misunderstood. It is not helped
by the fact that it can have multiple definitions and the situation can arise where people
working on the same project will be using their own, sometimes conflicting, definitions
that are explicit rather than implicit. “Empowerment” has immediate connotations
related to “power”. However, it is possible to arrive at least four meanings by using a
different preposition with “power”, and hence by extension, different objectives: power
over, power to, power with and power within.
5
In part, which definition is applied
5
Oxaal Z and Baden S (1997), Gender and empowerment: definitions, approaches and implications for
policy, Briefing prepared for Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Bridge
Report No. 40. Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
Batliwala, S., (1994), The meaning of Women’s Empowerment: New Concepts from Action., in Sen, Gita
et al, Population Policies Reconsidered, Havard Series on population and international health,
Cambridge, Mass.; Oxfam (1995), The Oxfam Handbook of Relief and Development. Oxfam, Oxford;
19

depends on context and the particular perspective of the user. Most development workers
would probably not subscribe to the “power over” definition, where this implies
dominance and subordination, particularly where violence and intimidation are involved.
They are probably consciously or unconsciously using empowerment to mean “power to
make decisions and solve problems” and/or “power to organise with a common purpose
or common understanding to achieve collective goals”. The feminist movement, when
advocating women’s empowerment, has used both the “power with” and the “power
within” meanings. “Power within” is interpreted as the creation of self-confidence, self-
awareness and assertiveness. By recognising through analysing their experiences,
individuals come to see how power operates in their lives, and so gain the confidence to
act to influence and change this
6
. Box 1 gives some examples of definitions of
empowerment.
Box 1: Perspectives on empowerment
The Human Development Report 1995, stresses that empowerment is about participation.
Development must be by people, not only for them. People must participate fully
in the decisions and processes that shape their lives. (UN, 1995: 12) but at the
same time promotes a rather instrumentalist view of empowerment; Investing in
women’s capabilities and empowering them to exercise their choices is not only
valuable in itself but is also the surest way to contribute to economic growth and
overall development (UN, 1995: iii)
For Oxfam
, empowerment is about challenging oppression and inequality:
Empowerment involves challenging the forms of oppression which compel
millions of people to play a part in their society on terms which are inequitable, or
in ways which deny their human rights (Oxfam, 1995).
Feminist activists
stress that women’s empowerment is not about replacing one form of
empowerment with another:
Women’s empowerment should lead to the liberation of men from false value
systems and ideologies of oppression. It should lead to a situation where each one
can become a whole being regardless of gender, and use their fullest potential to
construct a more humane society for all (Akhtar 1992 quoted in Batliwala 1994:
131).
Rowland
’s points out that empowerment is a bottom-up process and cannot be bestowed
from the top down:
The outside professional cannot expect to control the outcomes of authentic of
empowerment being given by one group to another hides an attempt to keep
control. (Rowlands, 1995: 104)
Source: Oxaal and Baden (1997) – full references footnote 5.
20
Rowlands, J, (1995), Empowerment examined. Development in Practice 5 (2); Oxfam, Oxford.; UN
(1995), The World’s Women 1995; Trends and Statistics, United Nations, New York.
6
Williams, S, Seed, J and Mwau, A (1994), Oxfam Gender Training Manual, Oxfam, Oxford, UK,
quoted in Oxaal and Baden (1997) (see footnote 5 for full reference).

The empowerment stream within GAD has been criticised for seeing empowerment as an
end rather than a means. While the efficiency stream has gone some way to bringing
women into mainstream development, development has been considered as focusing on
what women could do for development rather than the other way round. The integration
of women into the development mainstream was given a significant boost by the Fourth
International Conference on Women held in 1995 in Beijing. One of the outputs of this
conference was an international agreed strategy (known as the Platform for Action) for
governments and development organisations to promote gender equality. A major tool
for achieving gender equality is through gender mainstreaming.
Gender mainstreaming
Currently around the world, in all cultures and societies, there is considerable inequality
between women and men. Generally women are in a worse position than men as a result
of gender roles; they have fewer opportunities, lower status and less power and influence
than men. Gender inequality cuts across all other social and economic categories. It is
institutionalised in formal and traditional laws as well as unwritten norms and values.
The concept of gender equality can be defined as the equal enjoyment by women and
men of socially valued goods, opportunities, resources and rewards and equal
participation in decision making. This does not mean that women and men become the
same but that their opportunities and life chances are equal. Gender equality recognises
that men and women have different needs and priorities, face different constraints, have
different aspirations and can contribute in different ways. It does not mean that there
should always be equal numbers of men and women, girls and boys in all activities nor
does it mean that they should always be treated exactly the same.
Women’s empowerment is regarded as a key factor in achieving gender equality. Women
should be enabled to take charge of their own lives, where formerly they were under the
authority of men (fathers, husbands, brothers, male bosses), and had to obey or agree,
whether they liked it or not (gender contract). Women’s empowerment implies that they
should have more autonomy and be able to make decisions on issues that shape their
lives, both at household level but also in society in general. This autonomy can be
financial; if women as individuals have means of making money and can spend it as they
chose. But it can also mean more social freedom. Empowerment of women might mean
for example that in cases of divorce, they have equal rights over the children and
inheritance; that they can claim protection in cases of household and sexual violence, not
just in theory but in practice; that they have the right to control their own sexuality and
reproductive functions; and generally that educational and career opportunities are open
to them where these were formerly restricted.
The terms equality and equity are often used interchangeably. However, they have
different meanings. Some feminists have argued that achieving gender equality while
removing barriers to equal participation does not guarantee equality of outcomes. In
order to achieve equality of outcomes, there has to be redistribution of power and
resources, which is a much more radical agenda than the gender equality goal, in other
words gender equity is the goal. Equity means a ‘fair’ distribution, but what is fair, has to
21

be decided. To you, it might mean that women and men get paid the same daily wage for
the same work in transporting bags of grain. To someone else it might mean that women
get paid less, because they are less strong and cannot carry so many sacks. Deciding
what is fair is not always easy.
Most international development agencies subscribe to the gender equality approach.
Gender equality is to be reached through a gender mainstreaming approach. To
mainstream gender means to ensure that women’s as well as men’s concerns and
experiences are integral to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all
legislation, policies and programmes so that men and women benefit equally and
inequality is not perpetuated. The mainstreaming approach does not exclude women-
only (or men-only) projects; however, it differs in its focus to WID approaches by taking
gender equality as a goal rather than women as a target group. Mainstreaming tools
include gender training, introducing incentive structures which reward efforts on gender,
and the development of gender-specific operational tools such as checklists and
guidelines, gender budgeting, sex disaggregated data, gender sensitive indicators and
institutional analysis.
There is, of course, a lot of opposition to this in some quarters to the ideas of women and
men’s equality, because – particularly at the level of the household – this is a very
threatening idea to many people (not just to men: many women find the idea
unacceptable). Some see ideas of equity as an attempt to impose an alien culture by
outsiders.
Gender goals
The previous section has shown how our thinking on women and gender in the context of
development has evolved since the beginning of the 1970s. Certainly women’s concerns
are more readily found on the agenda of international agencies than they were then, and
since the Beijing Conference in 1995 programmes are now supposed to incorporate
gender. Projects and programmes incorporate gender through gender goals. However,
although many will claim that these goals are based on GAD, the goals can reflect all the
different approaches that have been taken in the preceding decades: welfare, efficiency,
equality/equity and empowerment. Some times they are mixed within the same project
and sometimes, different stakeholder groups participating in a project can have different
gender goals which may or may not be explicitly articulated. Much donor policy is
written in terms of women’s empowerment. However, in contrast, most energy projects
are planned in welfare or efficiency terms. There is often a gap between gender policies
or goals and actual practice.. Case study 7 from the Tumkur district in India describes an
example of inconsistent project planning from the government.
Case study 7: Inconsistent energy project planning, failure to match needs and
goals.
In India improved stoves have been disseminated by government departments. A small
NGO, Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE) assessed these improved stoves
in use in rural households. TIDE observed a large-scale rejection of the stoves. Several
reasons accounted for the refusal of the stoves, one of them being the inconsistency
22

between the government’s goals and the needs of the women. The government aimed at
improved stoves to save fuel. Women’s needs however were primarily to improve their
welfare by reducing the smoke. Unfortunately the stoves did not meet this requirement,
causing the non-acceptance of the stoves by the women.
A new strategy for dissemination of household stoves was needed and TIDE has engaged
rural women in dialogue about their needs/expectations of an improved woodstove.
Finally the project evolved towards a stove design catering for women’s expressed needs
and a stove dissemination strategy for rapid penetration of improved stoves without
subsidy or government intervention, but completely conceived and executed by women.
(Bhogle, 2003)
Case study 7 illustrates clearly the point that at the start of the project the needs of the
user were not taken into account sufficiently. Hence, at the start this led to poor project
efficiency. When the needs and goals were properly matched project efficiency increased.
Table 2 gives an overview of different gender goals and their implications for projects.
Table 2: Overview of the meaning of gender goals
Gender Goal Meaning Implies
Welfare of women Drudgery of women’s work and
the ill health related to this is
reduced, but fundamental roles
of women are not changed
Practical needs need to be met
Relates mainly to so-called
reproductive activities
Productivity of
women
Women able to participate more
efficient in economic activities
Productive needs need to be
met, but traditional roles not
necessarily changed
Empowerment,
equality, equity
for women
Opening up of new roles and
opportunities for women outside
traditional ones, in economic,
social, and political sphere
Women able to participate on
equal basis with men in the
economic sphere; earn and
control income for themselves,
if this was not the case before
Strategic interests need to be
addressed
Relates to new types of
activities and new roles and
freedom for women
More emphasis on strengthening
women’s productive activities
or opening new opportunities
for women’s production
Project efficiency Women’s roles properly
understood; the household no
longer seen as the unit in
planning.
Project should be more carefully
targeted.
In the next section, we will look at how our thinking on gender and energy has evolved
and we will then return to see how gender goals appear in gender and energy projects.
23

5.2 Evolution of Thinking on Gender and Energy
Early analysis of gender and energy focused primarily on the South since it was assumed
that in a Northern context energy is gender neutral.
In the South, initial attention was caught by the heavy burden faced primarily by women
and children, in relation to traditional fuel collection and use patterns. The burdens
include adverse health effects from indoor air pollution, and the opportunity costs to
women of missed productive employment due to the significant amounts of time spent in
the provision of fuel for household cooking and heating activities. The analysis quickly
gained sophistication, broadening to include a clearer understanding of the differentiated
energy use patterns of men and women based on the social and economic division of
labour, as part of gender analysis in the development field. In many countries, it was
observed that traditional fuel use and energy use for subsistence activities (“non-
productive” activities) were more common among women, while the use of modern,
traded fuels and energy services used for income earning or productive activities were
more concentrated among men. This led to extensive activities intending to benefit
women, in particular to liberate them from burdens associated with subsistence activities,
focusing on improved cook stoves and cooking patterns. However, these concerns were
not incorporated into national policies.
More recently there has begun to emerge a more complex understanding on the relation
between gender and energy. Today’s debate takes as its starting point that both men and
women are involved in productive activities requiring energy inputs. While the burden of
household energy supplies and services remains largely the responsibility of women,
access to modern energy carriers, like clean fuels and electricity, affects both men and
women. What distinguishes the debate is that the availability of energy services affects
men and women differently depending on the energy applications that they are most
involved in. Yet most energy policy debate, and legislative frameworks have taken a
gender neutral, or many would argue, a gender blind approach to energy pricing, rural
energy policy and energy technology. Thus energy policies continue to fail to recognise
the differences in the needs and assets of women and men.
By the mid-1990s, the concept of gender and energy had broadened from stoves, time
saving, woodlots and biomass fuels, and appropriate technology to one that encompassed
a broader range of issues including pricing, transport and modern energy forms, such as
electricity (Cecelski, 1995). Cecelski (1995) pointed out that decentralised renewable
energy systems have a good potential for contributing to labour saving and income
generation in rural areas. However, she concluded, if women were to benefit equally with
men, two constraints that prove a greater barrier to women than men had to be addressed:
lack of credit and lack of technical information and knowledge.
Much of the early activity related to gender and energy was at the project level and it was
not until the new millennium that the issue began to appear in international policy
debates. The ninth meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD-9) in
2001 was the first time that intergovernmental dialogue focused specifically on the
relation between energy and multiple development issues. CSD-9 concluded that access
24

to energy services (rather than supplies, fuels or electricity), in other words the benefits
that energy provides, is an essential prerequisite for reducing poverty. The document
signed at the end of CSD-9, also was ground breaking in the sense that it recognises that
there are gender and energy issues both in the North and in the South (UN, 2001).
In 2000, world leaders agreed on an ambitious set of global targets known as the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs, have no specific target on energy.
Instead, the relations between gender, energy and development, are implicit rather than
explicit. However, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in its
publication “Energy for the Poor” demonstrated the role of energy in meeting the MDGs
(DFID, 2002). Havet (2003) has taken this work further by showing how the gender
dimensions of energy relate to the MDGs (See Tables 3 and 4).
While much of the gender and energy discourse has focused on the South due to the
acutely manifest importance of energy in women’s lives in the South, energy issues in
richer countries also have important implications for gender relations, female political
participation and sustainable development. In both cases, the role of women in political
life, community organizations, and families points to the important opportunities for
leadership that can bring about positive change to use energy as an instrument to achieve
multiple objectives linked to social justice, environmental protection and economic
empowerment. In the North, for many women their direct involvement in energy issues
came about with political opposition to nuclear power, for example, in Europe after the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Evidence is now beginning to emerge, based on work carried out in the USA and the
European Union (most notably Germany), that there exist the common policy challenges
in the South and the North with respect to the difficulties of engendering the energy
policy debate, domestic legislative and local regulatory frameworks to address gender
and energy issues. Indeed, a recent article by Clancy and Roehr (2003) has reviewed the
evidence and consider that there is a distinct gender dimension in the way women and
men’s lives in the North are affected by energy use. The gender neutrality of energy in
the North, the authors argue, must be contested.
There is no doubt that over the last twenty years, there has been a considerable
development in our understanding of gender and energy issues and how we should, at
least in the South, address them. Household energy is no longer seen entirely as
women’s preserve and that it is not synonymous with cooking (Clancy, 2002). A number
of researchers have taken a broader definition (see for example Clancy, 1998, Klingshirn
2000) to encompass all the activities that take place within a household and the linkages
to a much wider system of energy supply and demand. In addition, there are significant
linkages between household energy and other sectors, for example, agriculture
(agricultural residues as fuel source), health (lung and eye diseases, nutrition), education
(children’s opportunity for after-school study) and income generation (cottage industries).
These linkages also demonstrate that it is not sufficient to consider only women when
addressing household energy issues but that men also play a significant role in decision
making on household energy.
25

Table 3: Millennium Development Goals - goals and targets related to energy and
gender
(Source: Havet, 2003)
Goal Target How energy contributes to
achieving goals and targets
7
Gender perspective
Goal 1:
Eradicate
extreme
poverty
and
hunger
Target 1:
Reduce by half
the proportion
of people
living on less
than a dollar a
day
 More efficient fuels and fuel-
efficient technologies reduce the
time and share of household income
spent on domestic energy needs for
cooking, lighting and keeping warm
(poor people pay proportionately
more for energy)
 Reliability and efficient energy can
improve enterprise development
 Lighting permits income generating
activities beyond daylight hours
 Energy ca be used to power labour-
saving machinery and increase
productivity of enterprises
 Women and girls are generally
responsible for the provision of
energy for household use,
including gathering fuel or
paying for energy for cooking,
lighting and heating
 When women’s time and
income is freed up from these
activities, they can reallocate
their time toward (1) tending to
agricultural tasks and
improving agricultural
productivity (2) developing
micro-enterprises to build
assets, increase income and
improve family well-being
Target 2:
Reduce by half
the proportion
of people who
suffer from
hunger
 Improved access to cooking fuels
and energy-efficient technologies
increases the availability of cooked
foods (the majority (95%) of staple
foods need to be cooked before they
can be eaten)
 Pumped water for drinking, cooking
needs and irrigation systems that
deliver more water than what can be
carried
 Mechanical energy ca be used to
power labour-saving machinery and
increase productivity along the food
chain (for example, to process
agricultural outputs, such as milling,
husking)
 Improved access to efficient fuel
and technologies reduces post
harvest losses and water needs
through better preservation (for
example, drying and smoking)
 Women are generally
responsible for cooking and
feeding their families and often
for subsistence agriculture and
food processing
 A well-developed agricultural
sector helps to promote
economic opportunities for
women, allowing them to build
assets, increase income and
improving family well-being
Goal 2:
Achieve
universal
primary
education
Target 3:
Ensure that all
boys and girls
complete a full
course of
primary
schooling
 Access to efficient fuels and
technologies frees up children’s
time, who are often pulled out of
school to help with survival
activities (fetching wood, collecting
water, cooking inefficiently, crop
processing by hand, manual farming
 Girls are more likely to be taken
out of school to help with
domestic and agricultural
chores than boys
 Spending on schooling,
especially for girls, increases
with higher incomes for women
7
The information contained in this column was adapted from the UK’s Department for International
Development (DFID)’s publication Energy for the Poor: Underpinning the Millennium Development
Goals (2002).
26

Goal Target How energy contributes to
achieving goals and targets
7
Gender perspective
work)
 Energy can create a child-friendly
environment (access to clean water,
sanitation, lighting and space
heating/cooling)
 Lighting in schools allows night
classes
 Girls are more likely than boys
to be affected by a lack of
access to clean water and
sanitation facilities reducing
school attendance
Goal 3:
Promote
gender
equality
and
empower
women
Target 4:
Eliminate
gender
disparity in
education
 Electricity enables access to
educational information and
information communications
 Street lighting improves the safety
of women and girls at night
allowing them to attend night
schools and participate in
community activities
 Women are more likely than
men to be illiterate
 Women are less likely than men
to have access to information
and be included in political and
community life
Goal 4:
Reduce
child
mortality
Target 5:
Reduce by two
thirds the
mortality rate
among
children under
five
 Cleaner fuels and technologies help
reduce indoor air pollution which
contributes to respiratory infections
that account for up to 20% of the 11
million deaths in children each year
 Traditional stoves can be unsafe (for
example, burns and household fires)
 Cooked food, boiled water and
space heating contributes to
improved nutrition and health
 Women have primary care for
the health of children
 Women and young children
spend the most time indoor
 Women and girls are generally
responsible for cooking, often
with unventilated open fires
Goal 5:
Improve
maternal
health
Target 6:
Reduce by
three quarters
the maternal
mortality ratio
 Energy services are needed to
provide access to better medical
facilities, including medicine
refrigeration, equipment sterilization
and operating theatres
 Energy can be used to produce and
distribute information on sex
education and contraceptives
 Excessive workload and heavy
manual labour (for example,
carrying heavy loads of fuel
wood and water; arduous and
repetitive agricultural and food
processing tasks) may affect
pregnant women’s health and
well-being
Goal 7:
Ensure
environme
ntal
sustainabil
ity
Target 9:
Reverse loss of
environmental
resources
Target 10:
Reduce by half
the proportion
of people
without
sustainable
access to safe
drinking water
 Over harvesting, land clearing or
environmental degradation can
make fuel wood more scarce forcing
the poor to travel farther and spend
more time and physical energy in
search for fuel
 Availability of cleaner fuels and
energy-efficient equipment reduces
demand for fuel wood and charcoal,
increases availability of dung and
agricultural wastes for fertiliser, and
reduces air pollution and greenhouse
gas emissions
 Motorised pumps help provide more
clean water for drinking and
sanitation than amounts carried
 Women and girls are generally
responsible for gathering fuel
wood and collecting water
 The chances of sexual assault
and other risks (for example, of
snake bites) increases the
further women and girls must
travel
27

Table 4: An example of how the gender-energy nexus can target most of the
Millennium Development Goals
(Source: Havet, 2003)
Goal Main Impact Additional Impacts
Goal 1: Eradicate
extreme poverty and
hunger
 Women save a total of 8 hours per
week in processing agricultural
products (millet, sorghum, maize)
 Women save a total of 7 hours in the
husking of rice that manually takes 8
hours
 Women save about almost half of the
time spent milling and pounding shea
nuts
 Men save time and transport costs
with a battery recharger on location
 Men save money and time with
locally supplied welding
 Women were able to double their rice
output and triple their shea butter
production on their individual plots
with the time saved women due to the
platform
 Better quality product obtained after
processing
 Reduced losses (e.g. 10% gain in the
case of shea butter)
 Larger quantities processed (shea
butte)r
 Better food hygiene (e.g. use of
pestel and mortar or grinding stone)
 Creation and training of welder jobs
 Electricity allows the platform to be
used at night
 Women were also able to diversify
their agricultural output and engage
in market trade to sell their
additional product
 Conflicts within families have been
reduced as meals are more likely to
be provided on time and are of
better quality
Goal 2: Achieve
universal primary
education
 Girls perform better in school than
boys when the platform is installed
 Platform reduces the chores girls
have to perform in the morning (e.g.
pounding and drawing water)
 More regular attendance at school as
girls are less likely to be taken out
of school for entire days
 Girls are less tired in the evenings
for homework
 Increase in women’s revenues
allows mothers to send their
daughters to school
Goal 3:
Promote gender
equality and
empower women
 Financial management of platform by
women raises their visibility in the
villages
 Literacy training is provided to the
women who manage the platform
 Electricity provides access to
information through radio and
television
 Mobilisation of financial resources
through the fee-for-service system
has allowed the women to
participate in the development and
management of activities in the
village (in some villages, the capital
from the women’s group is the
largest source of capital available)
Goal 4: Reduce child
mortality
 Water pumping provides better
hygiene and water quality
Goal 5: Improve
maternal health
 Electricity provides lighting of
maternity ward and better delivery
conditions
Goal 7: Ensure
environmental
sustainability
 Women and girls save time drawing
water when water pumping is
provided
 A water reserve is created and
managed
 Neighbouring villages can also draw
water
28

However, why does so much of the discussion in a discourse that calls itself “gender and
energy” seem to focus to a large extent on “women and energy”? Of the 1.3 billion
people who live in poverty, 70% are women. Approximately one-third of the households
in rural areas have female heads. Many of these women are more disadvantaged than men
in similar circumstances, for example, women’ access and control over resources such as
land, cash and credit is more limited than men’s. Women’s technical skills are often less
than men’s, for example, compared to men, women’s reading levels are lower and their
experience with hardware is less. This means that when making energy interventions to
help people move out of poverty, the ability of women to respond is more restricted than
men and special elements need to be included in projects and programmes to address
these gender differences to ensure that anyone who wishes to participate and benefit is
not excluded on the grounds of lack of assets. Case Study 8 describes a community
hydro project in Nepal which used the approach of separate women and men’s groups for
ensuring that women were involved and benefited along with the men.
Case Study 8: Encouraging women and men’s participation in community energy
projects.
In 1996 the Rural Energy Development Programme (REDP) in Nepal established male
and female community organisations with equal responsibilities to work on the project.
The REDP project aims at enhancing rural livelihoods and preserving the environment
by supporting the installation of micro hydro power systems. Every participating
household sends a male member to the male community and a female member to the
female community. The segregation of women and men into separate community
organisations encourages men and women to discuss and analyse specific problems they
face. The community organisations meet every week. By the end of 2000 total
membership was 20,258 women and 19,125 men in 1,021 female and 1,000 male
community organisations.
Additionally, the project facilitates capacity building through training in reading and
writing, management and leadership.
The equal opportunities have had a very visible and positive impact in mobilising women
and integrating them into mainstream activities. The women in community organisations
have a distinct voice in local affairs and self-confidence has increased, as has their
capability for independent and collective action.
(Rana-Deuba, 2001).
5.3 Gender Goals in Energy Project Planning
Understanding that women have practical and productive needs as well as strategic
interests, that can be addressed by energy projects, leads to the question of what, exactly,
are the gender goals of any given project. In other words, what is the reason for taking a
gender approach in planning the project? What do we hope to achieve by it?
Gender goals will differ from one project to another, from one community to another,
from one situation to another. It is important, however, that both the planners and the
community involved in the project are clear about and agree on the gender goals in the
particular case. Often, projects are said to be aimed at ‘empowering women’ when in
29

reality they are not able to do this – or local people may not be in agreement that this is
the aim. It is better to be clear and realistic about what gender goals have been set, so
that the target is visible and evaluation of the project can be made on the basis of an
agreed and accepted aim. The participants in the project should also be clear about the
aims. This can help overcome resistance to projects and avoid disappointments.
In Section 5.1 it was mentioned that there can be four different goals when it comes to
using a gender approach in project planning: welfare, empowerment, equity/equality and
efficiency. Careful thought is needed to decide which of these should be the guiding goal
for any given project. We will now look at how energy projects can meet different gender
goals.
1. To improve women’s welfare through energy technologies
This first goal takes as its starting point that women’s lives involve a lot of drudgery,
recognizing that they work longer hours than men, when their household tasks are
considered as well as their other work in the family fields or in the family business, or as
wage labourers. Many of the household tasks require considerable physical effort and
negative effects; fetching water, fetching firewood and cooking over smoky, open fires,
for example. Sympathy for the unpleasantness of these conditions has rightly given rise
to the idea that such tasks should be lightened for women.
The largest energy-related health impact on women and children on a global basis is their
high exposure to indoor air pollution in the more than half of the world's households that
cook daily with wood, crop residues and untreated coal. Typical indoor concentrations of
important pollutants, such as respirable particulates, carbon dioxide, benzene and
formaldehyde, are excessive by comparison to WHO guidelines on acceptable limits for
exposure. Thus it is obvious that improved stoves that are safer and produce less smoke,
relate to welfare goals for women. Energy projects aiming to improve women’s welfare
may also take as their primary focus other issues such as drinking water, as the case study
below shows.
Case Study 9: Solar water disinfection in Latin America
Solar water disinfection in Latin America is a possibility for thousands of people who, due to
their precarious conditions, have no other option for obtaining clean drinking water. It
especially benefits women and children since they traditionally have the responsibility within
the family for water collection and its treatment. Previously chlorine and boiling have been
used as strategies to clean the water. However, the problem with the use of chlorine is the
bad taste it gives the water and additionally obtaining the supply of the chlorine. High costs
for fuel make water boiling problematic and in many areas there is a scarcity of fuelwood.
SODIS provides a simple and effective alternative. SODIS is a simple technology that utilizes
the energy from the sun to inactivate and destroy pathogenic microorganisms present in
water. Basically it amounts to filling transparent bottles with water and exposing them to the
sun for a minimum of six hours. Disinfection takes place through the combined action of
ultraviolet (UV) radiation and the increased temperatures generated by the sun. Research
has demonstrated that SODIS results in reductions of up to 99.9% in faecal coliforms, a
30

good indicator of the faecal contamination of water. The same has been shown for Vibrio
Cholerae bacteria.
The benefits for women are clear, it reduces their workload and it improves health (Del
Torres & Salas, 2001).
When the project goal is to aim at improving women’s welfare
in most cases this relates
very closely to satisfying women’s practical needs
.
2. To increase women’s productivity through energy technologies
Some energy projects have the potential to help women produce more efficiently and
increase their output, leading to higher incomes for themselves and their families and to
economic development. Electric sewing machines to replace hand machines, solar driers
which give a better quality product (dried fish or fruits); improved small scale bakery
ovens for women’s enterprises, electric light allowing work and study in the evenings,
refrigerators allowing the sale of cool drinks and computers supporting business
enterprise.
Case Study 10: Energy project to increase productivity. Ugandan women and solar
dryers
In Uganda, an FAO/UNDP post-harvest programme recommended small-scale solar dryers
for long-term storage and household consumption of fruit and vegetables. However rural
women's groups were more interested in solar dryers for income generation than for food
security. Subsequently, the ‘Fruits of the Nile’ company was formed in 1992 to link rural
producers with the market for dried fruit in Europe. Within three years more than 50 women
groups had taken up the solar drier technology, and in 1995 the company exported more than
50 tonnes of dried fruit. The original food security concerns are also being addressed. When
they are not drying for profit, the women use the solar dryers to preserve vegetables and
fruits for home storage and consumption (Okalebo & Hankins, 1997).
In case study 10 the solar dryers enabled women to increase their productivity.
When the project goal is to aim at improving women’s productivity,
in most cases this
relates very closely to satisfying women’s productive needs
3. To promote women’s equity, equality and empowerment through energy
technologies
Case study 8 from Nepal (see Section 5.2) tried to increase women’s involvement with an
equality goal in mind. A project that offered a micro hydro system took both men’s and
women’s needs into consideration by separating them into two distinct groups with equal
responsibilities. The project has an equality goal, whereby men and women have equal
rights and responsibilities. In this project the women have also felt empowered by their
31

successes.
How can energy help “empower” women? An example is the creation of new career
opportunities for women in the energy sector, for example energy entrepreneurs in any
one or more of the following: producing, processing, distributing and selling energy
resources (eg electricity) or technologies (solar cookers). Several projects have succeeded
in educating women as energy entrepreneurs. Case study 11 from Kenya, below, shows a
situation where women became energy entrepreneurs and felt empowered.
Case study 11: Energy project for empowerment. Kenyan women producing stoves
Thirteen women's groups (200 people) have been trained in making stoves in the Rural Stoves
West Kenya project, and many have also benefited from business management training.
Annual production is estimated at 11,000 stoves annually; the profit generated by the stoves
is comparable to wages in rural areas. As a result, the women potters have gained in status,
self-confidence and financial independence (ITDG, 1998).
Although ‘empowerment’ is a key aspect of current development practices, it may be
difficult for most energy projects on their own to really bring empowerment to women.
The reasons that women are not empowered today are complex and many sided; energy is
only one of many resources to which women have little access. In general we can say
that is not generally a particular energy technology that has the potential to really
empower women, but the process by which the energy technology is introduced. A
project can be planned in such a way that women get new types of opportunities, such as
management positions, or technical training in maintenance, which are non-traditional.
Projects can be carried out in such a way that women are properly represented in
decision-making, and given scope to take on decision-making where they were
previously ignored. This will depend not on the technology, but on the attitude and
working practice of the implementing organization, which will have to be very sensitive
to gender issues and to bring women onto the stage. There are examples where women
have had access to T.V. and radio as a result of rural electrification projects that have
enabled women to learn about their fundamental rights.
Empowerment, equity
and equality all relate to the strategic interests of women.
4. To improve the likelihood that the energy project is successful and efficient in
itself
The previous three approaches to gender planning are reasoned from the perspective of
benefits to women. Another approach focuses on the benefits for the project of taking a
gender approach.
The project efficiency goal begins with the idea that projects often fail because the
planners fail to understand the people’s needs properly. Hence the idea of participation
was developed, as a means of listening more to the people and finding out what it is that
is needed. An extension of this is that men and women may have different needs, thus it
is necessary to encourage women to participate to understand better what their needs are.
It is acknowledged that unless special care is taken, men’s voices will always be heard
32

more than women’s, for example at public meetings, or when a survey interviewer goes
to a household, since generally it is the male head of household (if there is one) who is
expected to be the respondent. Many such surveys ask questions about ‘the household’
as if it were an undifferentiated unity. In this way, women’s needs are not noticed. By
finding out what women need as well as what men say is needed, more economic
efficiency can be drawn out of the project.
When energy projects do not take into consideration the needs of both men and women,
efficiency will suffer (as demonstrated in case study 12 from Northern Thailand, where
the gender contracts of women were not taken into account insufficiently and the whole
forestry planting project failed). Setting up collaborative structures between men and
women may also facilitate the successful implementation of energy projects, as the
example of biogas cooperatives in India shows (case study 13).
Case study 12: Problems caused by lack of gender analysis. Gender analysis for
community forestry in Northern Thailand.
A tree planting project in northern Thailand was motivated partly for environmental reasons,
and partly to reduce women’s drudgery in fetching firewood. Households were interviewed,
and it appeared that both men and women supported the idea that a tree plantation should be
started. So the project management delivered the tree seedlings at the beginning of the rainy
season – but they never got planted. Why not? Because planting, as an activity, is a
women’s task in that community, and in the rainy season they were 100% occupied with
planting the staple food crop, which had of course a greater priority in their minds. Through
lack of sensitivity to traditional gender roles, project management had assumed that men
planted crops and therefore that women would have had time to plant trees. Had the
planners talked to women in more detail beforehand, this kind of fact might have been
discovered and a more efficient plan could have been made: possibly a deal could even have
been made by which the men planted the trees! But as it was, the resources were wasted,
because the men did not see it as their work – the benefit was, after all, to be for the women
(Wilde & Vainio-Mattila, 1995).
Case study 13: Improving efficiency. Setting up cooperatives.
In India cases where community biogas plants have been successful, have largely been
attributed to indigenous management through the formation of co-operative societies of the
biogas producers and users. From village to village, the bio-gas co-operatives have, over a
period of time, evolved their own unique methodologies for managing their plants. While
some purchase the dung and sell the gas and slurry, others give discount on gas charges to
those who contribute the most dung. Still others return the slurry to members according to
their dung contributed without charging or buying anything.
For instance, Motipura Village purchased a biogas plant in the form of deductions in the milk
payments from the village Dairy Cooperative. A management committee was elected. At first,
there were no women on the committee. After one year of operation, the crunch for dung
arose – people were not supplying enough dung to the biogas plant. The men thought that
only through active involvement of women could this problem be overcome. The simple logic
33

was that it is the women who tend the cattle and they are the ones who benefit the most from
the gas supply. The cooperative then inducted 5 women members on the Management
Committee. The decision-making was left entirely with the chairperson and the group of
women who were trained to run the biogas plant. The Motipura Co-operative Biogas Plant
ran well over 6 years. (Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, 2001).
6 CONCLUDING REMARKS TO PART I
The first part of this paper has introduced a number of gender concepts and set them in
the context of the energy sector. It has also looked at the way thinking has changed in
relation to gender and energy in the context of the evolution of changes in approach to
development. The reader is invited to try to apply these concepts in their own situation.
The second part of this paper looks at issues in gender and energy. It also uses some of
the concepts described in Part I.
34

Part II: The Issues
7 GENDER ANALYSIS OF ENERGY NEEDS
Energy is one of the most essential inputs for sustaining people’s livelihoods. At the
most basic level energy provides cooked food, boiled water, and warmth. There is
definitely a difference in fuel type used based on household income. Low-income
households use biomass. The fuel quality is low, burning with levels of smoke and
particles that are recognised as having negative effects on health (see for example, Smith,
1999). Biomass collection can take several hours per day, time that cannot be used for
other livelihood (productive and practical) activities. Although nearly all households in
rural areas use some biomass, poor households rely most on this source, and tend to
spend more time searching than higher income households. Wealthier households also
purchase other, higher quality, fuels which will be used for a greater variety of end-uses
than in poor households. In urban areas, poor people have to purchase cooking fuels, and
they spend a higher proportion of their income on fuels than higher income households
(ESMAP, 1999). Typically, a poor urban family may spend 20% of its income on fuels
(Barnes, 1995). In rural areas, poor households will generally restrict fuel purchases to
lighting uses (candles and kerosene – with their associated fire hazards). Poor households
use less energy per household than wealthier ones in absolute terms. It is therefore
possible to identify an energy dimension to poverty: energy poverty. Energy poverty has
been defined as the absence of sufficient choice in accessing adequate, affordable,
reliable, high quality, safe and environmentally benign, energy services to support
economic and human development (Reddy, 2000).
While both men and women benefit from access to energy in terms of reducing poverty
and hunger through increased food production, employment and clean water, women and
girls are likely to show additional benefits due to time saving, particularly in terms of
water and fuel collection, and improved health, particularly through the use of cleaner
fuels. The inter-relation between energy, poverty and gender is known as the energy-
poverty-gender nexus. The gender dimension of energy arises from the fact that within
households, where there are adult men and women, the gendered division of labour
generally allocates to women the responsibility for household energy provision related to
their spheres of influence in the household, in particular activities centred around the
kitchen. They are often supported in this work by girls and sometimes boys, who can be
kept out of school thereby damaging their own future livelihood choices. Men become
involved in fuelwood collection in locations where large quantities and pieces of wood
need to transported over long distances.
Another reason for the gender dimension of poverty is that of the approximately 1.3
billion people living in poverty, it is estimated that 70% are women, many of whom live
in female-headed households in rural areas. Since women generally have less access to
resources and decision-making than men, many poor female-headed households can be
expected to be living in extreme energy poverty. It is not only the supply of energy
which will be constrained, but also the important services for the household which will be
35

affected, such as clean water provision. Their lack of resources makes them vulnerable to
changes outside of their control e.g. drought.
When designing energy strategies that are intended to assist people to move out of
poverty the gender dimension of the routes into poverty must be taken into account, since
these will influence not only what has to be done but the strategies that can be employed.
Poor men and women do not necessarily become poor in the same ways. For example, a
man might loose his job, and a woman, who has always depended on her husband for
financial support, may become a widow, forcing her to start looking for a paying job later
in her life, which she might be ill equipped to do. Men and women have different ways
of adopting strategies for addressing their poverty. For example, men are more easily able
to migrate while women stay put managing the household and creating informal sector
business they can run from home.
Other gender issues which influence the form of energy intervention strategies include
the fact that women’s influence over decision-making within the household and
community is restricted. Women’s lack of influence limits their capacity to control
processes and resource allocation on many issues including energy. Women and men
have different perceptions about the benefits of energy, for example, a research study on
the gender related impact of micro-hydro in Sri Lanka, found that men in the area under
study saw the benefits of electricity in terms of leisure, quality of life, and education for
their children; while women saw electricity as providing the means for reducing their
workload, improving health, and reducing expenditure (Dhanapala (1995) quoted in
Barnet, 2000). The impact on poverty of improved energy services is determined by the
choice of end-use to which energy is put. Therefore, gender analysis of household energy
would pose key questions such as: who chooses which energy carrier?; how is it used?;
and who benefits from this use?
Gender interests are not always obvious, neither are potential impacts of project
interventions. Emphasis in energy planning for the benefit of women has long
concentrated around cooking, with firewood collection being seen as the central problem
to be tackled. A proper analysis of women’s workload often reveals quite different
priorities as is illustrated in case study 14.
According to the analysis in the case study 14, the most significant energy intervention
may be for water collection and market trips!
One consequences of adopting a gender approach is that 'the household' is no longer the
basic unit of the planning process, since it is acknowledged that within the family, men
and women have different views, roles and needs, as well as access to and control over
resources, which need to be considered. Case study 15 clearly illustrates the
consequences of not taking into account gender relations when planning energy
interventions which are intended to benefit women.
36

Case study 14: Water not energy provision as main household core.
A study by Mehretu and Mutambira (1992) measured the time and energy used by different
family members in transport connected with regular household activities. Chiduku Communal
Area in eastern Zimbabwe is a resource deficient area with high population density. There is no
electricity and kerosene, which is used only for lighting, is very expensive.
Seven routine-trip generating household activities were considered:
- Fetching water for domestic consumption (represented as water)
- Doing the family laundry (laundry)
- Collecting firewood (firewood)
- Grazing livestock (Livestock, G)
- Watering livestock (Livestock, W)
- Visits to local markets (Markets, L)
- Visits to regional markets (Markets, R)
(Note that average daily calorie intake in Zimbabwe is about 2,132. For each activity, the
number of trip making persons per household is about 1.5)
Activity Female
contribution
%
Total week’s
household
time (hours)
Female
share of
time (hours)
Energy
cost
(Calories)
Female share
of energy cost
(calories)
Water
99.4 10.3 9.3 2,495 2,270
Laundry
99.4 1.3 1.1 304 270
Firewood
96.1 4.5 4.1 1,068 972
Livestock G
67.4 7.7 3.0 1,672 652
Livestock W
67.7 6.9 2.3 1,484 579
Markets L
78.9 15.0 9.5 3,585 2,258
Markets R
61.3 0.3 0.2 76 46
Case study 15: Who controls energy assets in the household?
In the drought of 1987, in Solan District, the NGO SUTRA tried to motivate women to
plant trees since the women were walking 20 km to get fodder. SUTRA introduced the
idea of multi-purpose trees and provided seedlings based on a list of preferred species
given by the women.
However, when the seedlings arrived, few were taken by the women and of those that
were taken, few survived. Analysis showed that the women were simply too busy during
the rainy season to plant the trees. The areas with the greatest potential for growing trees
are the privately owned grazing lands since here the trees will not compete with valuable
food or cash crops. But these are far from the home and difficult to protect. In general,
there is a shortage of fodder types of trees on these lands, brought about by the men's
cutting of any trees with commercial value, for timber. Thus the women were afraid the
same fate would befall their newly planted trees. The men after all have the last word on
the management of resources on family property. The men were not at all concerned with
fodder trees.
SUTRA then realised they had made a classic error in formulating their strategy. Simply
because women have the primary responsibility for gathering biomass for fodder and fuel
37

does not mean that they should be considered responsible for replenishing the source. By
asking the women to plant trees, SUTRA was increasing their work levels, but not their
control over the use of the trees. (Sarin, 1992).
Another important factor that can be missed by taking the household as a homogenous
unit relates to the way in which family finances are shared. Some studies from Africa
show that male and female incomes are generally not pooled. As studies from West
Africa have shown:
A husband’s income is normally kept secret from his wife, so is hers from him,
and each covers a defined set of expenses, often borrowing from each other.
(Sigot et al, 1995)
7.1 Household Energy is a Woman’s Concern?
Household energy is usually equated with cooking. As was indicated in the previous
section women are responsible for energy provision related to their spheres of influence
in the household, in particular activities centred on the kitchen. However, men become
involved where fuel has to be collected over long distances, where fuel is purchased, or
there are social restrictions on women leaving their homes. Collection of fuel is only one
part of a more complex system of household energy management. Dutta (1997) identifies
an interconnected subsystem of six components: kitchen, fuel, devices and equipment,
cooking, vessels, and food. Men and women play very distinct roles in carrying out the
activities and decision-making around these six components. Understanding these roles is
important for designing effective and sustainable interventions.
When energy has to be purchased, men enter the decision-making process. For example,
in India, if a stove is to be purchased men will decide on the technology (Dutta, 1997).
In South Africa, it was found that the high expenditure on batteries was for young men to
listen to taped music; in many cases female members of the household had no access to
the equipment and no control over battery purchase (Makan, 1995). In some households,
recreational equipment, such as TVs and radios, was bought before labour-saving
equipment for domestic chores. The male members of the household made decisions
about what to buy and who owned it. The impact of such decisions on total household
budgets should not be overlooked. Survey data from Uganda in 1996, showed that 94%
of rural households not connected to the electricity grid used dry cell batteries and were
estimated to be spending about US$6 per household per month on batteries (quoted in
Barnett 2000)
8
.
Access to modern forms of energy can also have unforeseen positive social benefits. For
example, women have been found to benefit in terms of their self-esteem from access to
television (impossible without electricity). In Nepal, it has been reported that women’s
8
Barnett (2000) points out that although such batteries are convenient, they are a very expensive
way of buying electricity, in terms of energy supplied, the electricity probably costs more than US$400
per kWh.
38

empowerment was enhanced when they could see pictures showing that they “don’t have
to remain as second class citizens” (quoted in Barnett, 2000).
Men can also influence the uptake of energy technologies in the women’s domain of the
kitchen. In Zimbabwe, men are reported to have rejected the use of solar cookers by their
wives, since technology and its development are seen traditionally as a male preserve.
Some men have also expressed concern about the use their wives would make of the time
saved through using new stoves, while others saw it as an opportunity for their wives to
undertake more productive activities (Wilson and Green, 2000). Women are also aware
of the fact that savings in one area of drudgery can result in increased drudgery in other
areas leading them to reject “labour saving” devices)
9
.
8 ENERGY AND WOMEN'S HEALTH AND SAFETY
There is a two-fold relationship between women on one hand and energy and health on
the other. The first relationship is where the production, transportation and utilisation of
energy adversely affect women’s health and safety which in turn affects the productivity
of women and their time-use efficiency, hence women’s productive and community roles.
The second relationship is where energy and energy systems provide crucial inputs to the
management of women’s health which directly affects women’s reproductive role, with
possible secondary effects on their other roles.
8.1 The Fuel Cycle: Bad for Women’s Health
Poor women in the developing world use cooking energy systems that are unsafe and
polluting; food-processing technologies that are rudimentary and laborious; transport
modes and food processing techniques that are punishment to the body; fuel and water
collection systems that expose them to physical assault and traumatic experiences at the
hands of men and wild animals; and land management practices that tax human
endurance.
Combustion of traditional biomass fuels and coal exposes low-income households to
serious health hazards. WHO estimates that around three million deaths a year occur in
the South related to indoor air pollution from biomass combustion for cooking and space-
heating. Since household energy provision and use for household survival needs is
women’s responsibility, it is not unreasonable to expect that biomass use affects women’s
health disproportionately to men’s. For example, the longer hours of exposure to smoke
and particulates in smoky kitchens experienced by women compared to men are
considered to be a contributing factor in women having higher levels of lung and eye
diseases than men. Research in Kenya (reported by von Schirnding, 2001) has shown
that women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with acute respiratory infections.
This infection rate has been linked to the greater exposure to indoor air pollution by
women compared to men. This finding is supported by similar research in South Africa
conducted as part of the same study. However, research in India (also part of the same
9
Work by Jackson (1997) in the water sector showed that some women deliberately adopt a non-
participation strategy in projects to avoid increasing their workloads.
39

study) showed higher levels of respiratory infections in young boys and men than in girls
and women. What these findings demonstrate is the importance of including gender as a
factor of analysis. Also impacts from energy use can be context specific; they are related
to a complex set of relationships between social, environmental and economic factors.
Biomass and health has tended to be analysed only in terms of biomass combustion
impacts, whereas the combustion forms only one part of a fuel cycle of collection,
transformation, transport and use and each stage has its own specific impacts. The
collection and transportation of biomass is primarily the task of women and girls. While
there is some excellent research being carried out, much with the support of WHO, into
the effect of smoky kitchens on women’s and children’s health (see for example, Smith
(1999)), other health linkages are not so well researched. For example, although the
amount of time spent by women in collecting and carrying heavy loads of fuel is often
noted, the damage these loads cause to women’s spines is not well documented.
Wickramasinghe (2001) has reported the negative impacts of fuel collection in rural Sri
Lanka: women suffered from a range of injuries (cuts, broken bones etc), skin irritations,
infections, snakebites and trauma (including sexual harassment and rape).
Transporting
biomass by headloading over a number of years, leads to women suffering from
headaches, weakened backs and joints, particularly as they grow older. Men in Sri Lanka
do assist in fuelwood collection but only when biomass sources are located close to the
household
10
, however, they do not complain of the same symptoms as women. Women
also face violence where fuel must be collected in areas of contested access or civil
disturbances: for example in Sarajevo, where women faced snipers while seeking fuel
supplies, or in Somalia, where UNHCR documented hundreds of cases of refugee women
raped and brutalized by bandits while away from camps to collect wood fuel (The
Economist, 1993). There are even reports of bride suicides in India partly due to women's
inability to meet their family's fuelwood needs (Agarwal, 1986).
Women in biomass energy-using industries are exposed to burns and smoke, although the
impacts on their health are not as well-documented as the exposure of women using
biomass as domestic fuel (BEST, 1988).
Health and safety are major concerns of women in their use of biomass fuels. Smoke
reduction and improved safety for children are often the two most important reasons cited
by women for adopting improved stoves and fuels. In South African urban townships, the
prevention of accidental kerosene poisoning of children, and the prevention in the
devastating housing fires caused by kerosene cooking and lighting, are important
motivations given by both women and men for desiring household electrification
(Mehlwana & Qase, 1996; Jones et al 1996; Banks et al 1996).
8.2 Energy Improving Women’s Health
As mentioned in the introduction to this section, energy systems are important for
managing the health and ensuring the safety of women. Women giving birth at night
10
This pattern of support by men in fuelwood collection in Sri Lanka is not consistent with the general
pattern where men tend to get involved when fuelwood has to be collected from long distances and there
is a transition to using carts or mechanized vehicles.
40

often do so without the aid of reliable lighting and transport systems. Good quality
lighting would not only reduce women’s stress during labour but might also help to
reduce maternal and infant mortality. Electricity plays a particularly important role since
it can power regular health facilities, for example storage of vaccines, mobile
reproductive/ maternal-child health clinics as well as ICT centres which could enable
access to emergency advice on midwifery and other ailments. In Tunisia, rural
electrification is considered to have benefited women and girls’ health, through access to
improved health care facilities (expanding range of equipment in clinics) and information
services (TV and video) (Chaieb and Ounalli, 2001). Eye problems were found to
decrease through the substitution of electric light for candles and kerosene lamps.
One consequence of energy poverty is that less water is boiled for drinking and other
hygiene purposes. This increases the likelihood of waterborne diseases, which in turn,
reduces the ability of poor people to improve their livelihoods, by not only preventing
adults from working effectively but also negatively effecting children’s learning.
To improve women’s health within the household a broad view of the entire household
fuel cycle needs to be taken, including not just improved stoves but kitchen and housing
design, food preparation and processing, and improved technology for the energy
efficient collection and transportation of firewood (Clancy, 2002).
9 ENERGY IMPROVING WOMEN’S LIVES
9.1 Reducing Drudgery; Saving Time
Human energy is essential to survival in the rural production system. Much of this human
energy is unpaid family labour provided by women. Metabolic energy is the energy
derived from the food we eat. This metabolic energy is difficult to measure, and is not
included in the conventional national energy accounting system, resulting in the
exclusion of substitution for this energy source in energy planning and major energy
projects (Cecelski, 1995). The challenge here may be to convert human energy to work-
equivalent of an electric or diesel system in order to increase its visibility. Drudgery
describes work that is repetitious, physically demanding and tedious. A large number of
tasks related to women's role in production and reproduction involve drudgery and are
time consuming. Women's tasks include planting, weeding, harvesting, food processing
and transportation of produce, as well as preparing and cooking food, as well as
collecting and transporting water and energy. Women work more hours per day than men
in relation to their productive and reproductive tasks. Table 5 gives gender disaggregated
data for household survival activities. A significant portion of drudgery can be eliminated
and significant amounts of time can be saved through the use of mechanical, thermal and
electrical energy technologies.
41

Table 5: Time allocation to survival activities among women and men (hours per
day)
(Source: Cecelski, 2000)
Activity Indonesia Burkina India Nepal
Faso
Firewood collection
Women 0.09 0.10 0.65 2.37a
Men
0.21 0.03 0.57 0.83
a
Water hauling
Women
0 0.63 1.23 0.67
Men
0 0 0.04 0.07
Food processing
Women
2.72b 2.02 1.42 0.70
Men
0.10b 0.17 0.27 0.20
Cooking
Women
- 2.35 3.65 2.10
Men
- 0.01 0.03 0.38
Average total work time
Women
11.02 9.08 9.07 11.88
Men
8.07 7.05 5.07 6.53
A Includes grass and leaf
fodder collection.
B Includes cooking.
However, can women afford to purchase improved household energy technologies?
There is some evidence that so long as the opportunity cost of women's unpaid labour
remains low, they and their families will not consider labour-saving a priority. For
example, a significant difference has been observed between China and India in the
success in commercial dissemination of improved stoves. By the early 1990s, 150
million or 70% of farm households in China had adopted improved stoves sold at
commercial prices, yet in India only 15% of households had adopted improved stoves,
even though the stoves were offered at highly subsidized prices (Barnes, et. al., 1994)..In
part this difference in dissemination has been attributed to in India women's labour is
perceived as having little cash value, whereas in China women's paid employment
outside the home means that time spent gathering fuels is a cash opportunity lost (Nathan
and Kelkar, 1997).
Engaging in income-earning activities may in fact be the only way that many women can
afford to purchase labour-saving energy technologies for their households. Thus, before
some basic needs can be addressed in the case of poor women, it may be necessary to
42

address a strategic need for income. This is because women’s time is not tradable.
Labour-saving devices are clearly a priority for rural women, given the inordinate amount
of time and energy that they expend in necessary household drudgery. Two phases in
rural technology initiatives can be identified that have had gender effects: those
introduced to improve efficiency of production in general (time saving), and those aimed
specifically at reducing women's drudgery.
Unfortunately, numerous studies have shown that not only have many energy
technologies introduced to save women's time and energy failed to do so (see Case study
16), but they have sometimes even worsened women's social and economic conditions
(Case study 17).
Case study 16: Biogas increasing women's work load.
Biogas systems have only recently begun to be adopted in Kenya. The most frequent
reason for failure of new biogas plants was lack of technical back-up within reach.
Another reason was poor technical design and construction, where the extension agent
had more zeal than accurate knowledge about the technology. But by far the most serious
reason for failure of women to take up the technology has been the amount of work
needed for the initial filling of the digester with dung; followed by the process of cleaning
up. In some cases time taken to collect water for a digester has turned out to be more
than time for fuelwood collection! Of course for the women who have persevered
through the initial drudgery, the results of using biogas have been well-worth the effort:
a clean kitchen, fast cooking, less time and money spent collecting or purchasing fuel
wood, convenient lighting system with all the attendant benefits for the whole
household… Consequently having working plants where the benefits of the system can be
clearly demonstrated has proved to be a vital link in the dissemination strategy of biogas
technology.
Whereas it is desirable to cut down on the drudgery in order to improve working
conditions of women, and increase efficiency and profitability, care has to be taken lest
women are totally displaced from their traditional sources of livelihood.
Case study 17: Mechanisation displacing women's labour.
"Traditional rice-milling in Java, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh involved hand pounding of
rice, a drudgerous, labour intensive female task paid very low wage rates. This was
almost totally replaced in a short period by mechanized milling - employing mainly male
labour.
Thus, a task full of drudgery was removed, but at great cost by placing women back into
unpaid domestic work”.
In Indonesia, following a government initiative, mechanized Rice hullers replaced 90% of
manual rice hulling between 1970 and 1978, with estimates of jobs lost as high as 1.2
million in Java alone and 7.7 million in all of Indonesia as a result. It is estimated that
the loss in earnings to women who used to pound rice manually was US $50 million
annually in Java, representing 125 million woman days of labour (Dauber and Cain,
1981).
43

Experience has shown that when attempts are made to introduce improved techniques or
technologies aimed at increasing productivity, the result can often be that men take over
traditional women's industries. Once a new technology brings upgraded skills and higher
returns, men tend to take over (see for example, palm oil milling in Nigeria and improved
fish-smokers in Senegal (Bryceson & McCall, 1997) as well as improved gari processing
in Nigeria (UNIFEM 1989)).
Such displacement of women brings into focus, again, the need for rigorous gender
analysis of a situation, including an assessment of potential impacts of an intervention.
9.2 Energy for Cooking
Cooking for the family is one of a woman’s most significant daily activities. Significant
in the sense that the type of energy used influences the time she has available for other
activities (including rest) and the potential impacts it has on her health. It is not
surprising that this energy service has received so much attention. In this section, we will
briefly review four of the main energy types promoted for cooking.
• Electricity
Unfortunately, electricity is not the cheapest option for cooking many basic foods,
although cooks do appreciate the cleanliness of the energy form. There are examples
of successful projects, for example in Nepal, involving electricity for cooking based
on mini- or micro-hydro power schemes (Anderson et al., 1999). It should be kept in
mind that it is not enough to supply the electricity but there must also be appropriate
stoves available as well as the need to work with cooks to adapt cooking techniques.
Solar home systems cannot be used for cooking since their output is too low.
• Solar cookers
There are many enthusiastic promoters and users of this technology. However, there
are still a number of challenges to overcome with this technology including variations
in sizing to accommodate the cooking needs of different household sizes. One
person’s advantage
(portability for moving
around the household)
soon becomes
another’s disadvantage:
easy to steal! The
technology requires
changes in cooking
practices and these can
be difficult to achieve
and sustain. A major
drawback of this
technology is that it has
often been taken up by
enthusiastic well-meaning amateurs, and cookers with poor aesthetic design are
produced. While this might work in emergency situations, e.g. refugee camps, when
Box 2: Solar Cooking in Kenya
Various attempts have been made to introduce solar cookers in
Kenya. However, there have been major problems with the
acceptability of this type of cooking. Of the people interviewed in a
review survey, 90 per cent found the cooker to be too slow. Fifty-
four percent complained that it could not cook preferred dishes, and
in many cases the cooker could not cook enough for all the family
members. In some areas where the solar box cooker is promoted
there is a real scarcity of food and people will not experiment with
the little food that they have. The cooker is seen as very expensive
item by over 53% of the respondents, especially since it can cook
only during the day.
(Stephen Gitonga, Intermediate Technology Kenya, quoted in
Anderson et al., 1999).
44

people are asked to part with hard earned cash they do not want to buy something
which looks second rate
11
. Box 2 gives some experiences from Kenya with attempts
to introduce solar cookers. Whilst resistance can often be overcome in the long term
with sensitive approaches, there are possibilities that social resistance will be too
strong. The cooking fire is seen in many societies as the social hub of the family, the
women of the household are able to socialise with their families in the kitchen while
cooking. Based on her field work in South Africa, Green (2001) suggested that solar
cookers, since they require cooks to work outside, might even lead to a breakdown of
this social web and a reduction of women’s influence on the socialisation of their
children.
• Biogas
Cooks who use biogas respond enthusiastically to its controllability and cleanliness.
However, the cost of a digester and the number of animals required to produce
sufficient gas for the household’s daily cooking needs is usually beyond low-income
households. The collection of the water needed as an input adds considerably to
women’s burden (in other words the savings of metabolic energy/time spent on fuel
collection is switched to water collection). There can be gender differences in
perceptions of the benefits of biogas. Dutta and her colleagues (1997) in an
evaluation of a biogas programme in rural India found that men and women both
valued the time saving element but for different reasons. The women mainly spoke
of time saved in fuelwood collection and cooking (allowing more time to be spent
with their families), the men appreciated faster cooking and more timely meals.
•
Improved biomass stoves
Biomass will remain the fuel option for many households for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, there is a need to produce wood and charcoal stoves that are more efficient
and pay attention to safety issues (smoke with wood, and carbon monoxide with
charcoal). Supply side issues of sustainable biomass also need to be addressed. It
would not be unreasonable to say that there has been a certain disillusionment with
improved cook stove programmes and other interventions, such as biogas and solar
cookers, because they have failed to live up to their expectations. Over the last
decade there has been declining support for stoves programmes amongst donors (for
example, the scaling back of the GTZ Household Energy Programme
12
) and national
governments (for example, the Central Indian Government’s decision to hand over its
stoves programme to state governments without financial support from the centre)
(Clancy, 2002).
9.3 Electricity Improving Women’s Lives
Electricity is a versatile energy source, and ranks highest in a hierarchy of preferred
energy. The supply of electricity also receives high priority in energy planning so it is
worth examining gender differences in benefit from access to electricity. In the previous
section we looked at electricity for cooking in which it was concluded that labour and
time saving in cooking is limited. However, there are other household uses of electricity
11
This applies to any technology.
12
Although GTZ has an energy conservation programme in the SADC region (Africa) which includes
household stoves projects. http://www.gtz.de/hep/english/index.html
45

that can also able to bring significant improvements in daily living. Cecelski (2002)
considers that electricity specifically addresses women’s needs for time saving, for
improved health, for security and for income generation. Time saving and reduced
drudgery are particularly addressed by water pumping and agricultural products
processing (such as grain milling and oil extraction). Improving security for enabling
participation in evening events through street lighting is a concern for both men and
women.
One of the main problems for the women of [marginalized urban shantytowns of] Tacna
[Peru] was the absence of electricity in their homes, for several reasons: they wanted to
make the most of the evening to speed up their textile work; they needed to feel secure in
their homes; they needed to facilitate the task of caring for their children; they needed to
make the night less dark; they needed to light the streets that they and their families used.
Yturregui, 1998
The recent World Bank ENPOGEN study in Sri Lanka, China and Indonesia found that
rural people regarded electricity as a basic necessity of daily life. The most significant
benefits ascribed to electricity are that it makes home life more convenient and
housework easier (Ramani and Heijndermans, 2003). The study found that, at least in Sri
Lanka, the major benefit of electricity is the time that women save. Eighty per cent of the
interviewees reported to save between one and two hours through avoided journeys
(taking batteries to be recharged, and going to the city to buy kerosene, medication, and
vaccinations) and on household activities (such as firewood collection, cooking, ironing,
boiling water, house cleaning, and chimney cleaning) (Massé and Samaranayake, 2003).
It is interesting to note how women made use of their extra “free time”. Twenty-nine per
cent of the female household members said that the time they saved was spent on extra
housework, while less than 5% reported using it for productive activities.
Interestingly there would appear to be differences in the way women and men appreciate
electricity. An evaluation of the impact of micro-hydro in Sri Lanka, found that men in
the area under study saw the benefits of electricity in terms of leisure, quality of life, and
education for their children; while women saw electricity as providing the means for
reducing their workload, improving health, and reducing expenditure (Dhanapala (1995)
quoted in Barnet, 2000).
It is also possible that electricity can contribute to improvements in gender equity with
regard to household tasks if the views of one man from an electrified household quoted
in the ENPOGEN Sri Lanka study become the norm:
“I am now prepared to do ironing and assist my wife in her work: ironing, boiling of
water, cooking”.
However, in rural Bangladesh access to electricity does not appear to have influenced the
prevailing gender division of labour; women’s responsibilities remained largely the same
in electrified households. as those of their counterparts in the non-electrified households.
However, women did report that they had more flexibility in organizing their work
according to their convenience which women considered a benefit (Clancy et al, 2004).
46

“Our household work has reduced a lot because of electricity. Apart from learning on
various issue like vegetable gardening, poultry through TV/Radio, we are able to spend
more time in teaching kids due to this addition time”. (Focus Group Discussion with
Female household members; Village: Rahmatpur, Union: Rahmatpur, Thana: Babuganj,
District: Barisal) HDRC (2002).
Where electricity is available in rural areas, it is mainly used for lighting, which can
extend evening working hours with both positive and negative effects. A common fear is
that electricity may add to the burden of a woman’s working day. The study in
Bangladesh reported no significant change. If as a result of improved lighting, women
themselves choose to work longer hours to increase their own income, this could be seen
as an indicator of empowerment rather than as a loss of welfare.
The implications of no reduction in working hours through access to electricity are that
women have less time for self-improvement or relaxation. It might prove difficult to
generalise about these issues. A World Bank study (cited in Cecelski, 2002) found some
evidence that women’s leisure time increases with electrification. While a study into the
socioeconomic impacts of rural electrification in Namibia showed that women did stay up
later than men, not working but socialising. (Wamukonya and Davis, 1999).
9.4 Improved Transport for Women
It is said that ‘rural Africa walks and carries its burden, and most of this burden falls on
women’. The same is applicable in most of the developing world. Lack of appropriate,
affordable and reliable transport systems affect productive activities by constraining
access to markets for inputs and products; constrains access to health and education
facilities; and influences the quality water and energy resources procured.
Studies reveal that women walk and take public transport more frequently than men
(Cecelski, 1995). In many countries there are large differences between men and women
in automobile access and ownership, as well as in possession of drivers' licenses. Women
tend to make a number of shorter and more complex daily trips for shopping, schools,
part-time employment and volunteer work. Current urban transport systems are not only
energy-intensive, but can often restrict the mobility of those who do not use them,
including pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transport. (Spitzner, 1993; Sloman,
1993).
Case study 18: Addressing women's urban transport needs.
One energy efficiency effort that has sought to address women's urban transport needs is
the mini-van taxi program of the Mid-Rand Transport Association in South Africa.
Private mini-van taxis provide the main source of cheap, rapid public transport in urban
areas in South Africa, but are plagued with problems of safety, inadequate service, and
violence related to competing lines. These problems especially affect women, who
travelling with children or moving around each day to a different work site, must change
taxis numerous times or take long detours to avoid violence. With assistance from the
Ministry of Energy and the International Institute for Energy Efficiency (IIEC), the
47

Association has been addressing these problems; a woman currently heads the program.
She cites women's negotiating skills as a major factor in its success in providing a safer
and more energy efficient public transport system (Wonfor, 1998).
As in energy planning, national planning for transport infrastructure is overwhelmingly
biased towards large road projects, which are more beneficial to users of motorised
transport. Transport is a major factor in access to and procurement of basic services,
including energy, water, health and education. As noted in an earlier example, fetching
fuel and water and visiting markets takes up inordinately large portions of women’s time
and energy, especially in rural areas of developing countries.
In the absence of motorised transport, head-loading and back-loading especially by
women walking is the only alternative. As was pointed out in Section 8 head-loading has
long term negative physical consequences for women.
Where infrastructure is underdeveloped, it is necessary to plan for alternative transport
systems that are compatible with prevailing circumstances. In order to optimise the
usefulness of traditional alternatives, relevant cultural norms and contracts have to be
addressed. The next two case studies show how women can benefit from using animals
for transport despite practices that men control or own animals,.
Case study 19.
To collect water for their households, Maasai women trek between 6 and 14 km, taking
three to eight hours to access water points. A donkey is allowed to carry 30 litres of
water per trip, whilst a woman with no donkey has to carry between 15 and 20 litres on
her back per trip. Even for those women with donkeys, cultural values associated with
donkeys mean that women are unable to make full use of the animals, and they end up
having to make extra trips.
In the dry season, the number of required trips for water leaves women with little time for
other group activities like vegetable gardening. Group activities are therefore limited to
rainy seasons, when water is abundant. Consequently, garden activities increase when
vegetable markets are not so favourable – since there is a glut in vegetable production.
The ability of the community to fully exploit market opportunities arising from their
gardens is circumscribed (Macharia, personal communication quoted in Denton, 2002).
Case Study 20: Women using donkeys to lighten their load
In western Kenya a collaborative project between IT Kenya and a local NGO, Future
Forest, used an existing revolving savings and loan scheme to enable a women’s group to
acquire donkeys. Women grouped together in threes to save half of the cost of a donkey,
with the balance provided on credit. The donkeys were mainly used for collecting water
(twice as much as before) and the transport of soda ash, sand and grains. Loan
repayment was possible through income generation from hiring to others and from the
trading of transported goods (such as soda ash). Although women still spend a similar
time on transport, their personal energy expenditure and drudgery has been reduced and
their income and economic security has increased. (Fernando and Keter, 1996)
48

10 ENERGY ENABLING WOMEN IN INCOME GENERATION
Energy offers women opportunities for income generation either as an input into running
their own businesses or through employment opportunities in the formal or informal
energy sector. This section looks at both aspects: the role of energy in women’s
enterprises and the role of women in energy service companies.
10.1 Energy for Women’s Productive Enterprises
Enterprises usually operated by women include food-processing industries, kiln-using
manufacturing activities and numerous service-sector activities. These industries tend to
be low-wage, labour- and effort-intensive and tiring as well as sometimes dangerous to
women's health. As much as 106 hours are reported as needed for processing 30 kg of
shea nuts. The production of kenkey (maize balls) can take up to six days, involving
soaking, milling, fermentation, dough making, cooking, ball making and boiling. The
production of palm and other oils is extremely arduous, requiring lifting and moving
heavy containers of hot liquid. As well as the process heat, derived mainly from burning
biomass, these tasks use large quantities of metabolic energy. Much could be done to
reduce the demands on women’s metabolic energy by the substitution of their labour by
machines. This topic is discussed in Section 9.1.
Most of the enterprises using process heat depend on fuelwood for energy. Since fuel is a
significant cost factor, there is a commercial motivation to improve the energy efficiency
of the production processes. An estimated 816,865 metric tonnes of fuelwood is
consumed annually by hotels, restaurants, guest houses and tea shops in Nepal, nearly
half the total consumption of rural industries. In Mopti, Mali, fish processing accounts for
40,000 tons of wood annually. In Abidjan, street food vendors, fish smokers and
restaurants were estimated to consume 60% of wood fuel.
Small industries generally buy their fuel and they have been severely affected by rising
energy costs, fuel shortages and deforestation. In the industries mentioned above, energy
is a significant cost factor. Wood fuel is estimated as 25% of production costs of dolo
beer in Burkina Faso, 30% of bread baking in Kenya and Peru, and about 20-25% of food
processing production costs generally (BEST, 1988).
Food processing was identified in an urban energy study in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, as
the least efficient energy user in the urban informal sector (Hosier, 1994). Although some
producers are able to substitute more efficient modern fuels, there is evidence that
fuelwood scarcities and rising costs pose a constraint on production.
Given that women’s enterprises have a strong reliance on biomass, the sustainability of
this energy supply needs attention. Unfortunately, biomass production for energy falls
between Ministries (usually Energy and Forestry) and as a consequence gets neglected.
In this regard the initiative by GTZ might present an interesting case of best practice. In
1998, GTZ began to implement a project on Biomass Energy Conservation (known as
49

ProBEC
13
) in six SADC countries to support local, national and regional initiatives aimed
at improving the energy situation for poor urban and rural households and small
businesses using biomass energy. Initially the programme did not use gender analysis.
However, a study in Namibia of a stoves programme to train men and women to build
and market improved biomass stoves and a solar cooker, found that if gender analysis had
been systematically used in the project design there probably would have been a lower
drop out rate from the training courses and that the requirements of both men and women
as end-users of the stove would have been matched which would contribute to a better
take-up of the new technologies. The solar stove design would have taken into account,
and hence increased the rate of acceptability, that household stoves are also used for
producing food for sale. However, the solar stoves normally designed for the household
are not large enough to cook the quantities of food prepared for commercial purposes
(Cecelski et al., 2001).
Women frequently run income generating activities from home since it enables them to
combine productive tasks with reproductive tasks, such as childcare. This is one of the
reasons women like to have electric light, it enables them to work from home. Rural
women in Tunisia cited having electricity in their homes, meant not having to leave for
work in towns as maids (Chaieb and Ounalli, 2001). This could be interpreted that
working from home empowered them to be their own bosses, as well as removing the
need to work outside of their own familiar environment and culture. Certainly, electric
light can benefit small enterprises with greater efficiency and quality of work, better
working environment and a more attractive and secure environment for customers
(security is particularly important for women) (Barua, 1998 quoted in Cecelski, 2002).
However, a number of researchers have expressed reservations that if electric light
extends working hours into the evening, this adds to women’s already long working day
(see for example, Clancy, 2000). Unfortunately, there are insufficient empirical data on
what use is actually made of the lighting to enable a definitive answer, and it would be
foolish to prejudge. One of the few detailed studies with gender-disaggregated data on
rural electrification reported that women in rural Bangladesh felt that while electricity
had not brought a real reduction in their workload it had given them greater flexibility
(through electric lighting) in the organisation of their work patterns (HDRC, 2002).
13
http://www.probec.org/
50

Given the focus on electricity supply within energy planning it should not be forgotten
that women’s enterprises mainly use process heat and their metabolic energy. Box 3
gives some examples of how energy can act as an enabling factor or a constraint on
women’s productive activities. Women entrepreneurs do want technologies that improve
their incomes and the viability of their businesses. For example, there are women’s
groups in Uganda who use solar dryers for fruit preservation which gives them a better
quality product and enables them to export 50 tonnes annually which has significant
positive impacts on the income they are able to earn (see case study 22).
Case study 22: Energy projects increasing women’s income generation potential
In Uganda, an FAO/UNDP post-harvest programme recommended small-scale solar
dryers for long-term storage and eventual household consumption of fruit and vegetables.
However rural women's groups were more interested in solar dryers for income
generation than for food security. Subsequently, the ‘Fruits of the Nile’ company was
Box 3: Energy as an opportunity or a constraint on women’s productive activities.
Energy availability that creates opportunities
(increased income/more sustainable use of
natural resources)
• Community-level sustainable management of forests can provide income through
organised firewood production and sale.
• Energy entrepreneurship as a secondary activity for community service and income
generation.
• Improved technologies for charcoal production can boost sustainability and
incomes.
• Availability of mechanical and process heat technologies can be a stimulus to the
start up of various small-scale enterprises (sawing, food processing etc.).
• Electricity may enable the start up or expansion of small-scale service enterprises
such as hairdressing, photocopying and internet cafes.
Energy scarcity as a constraint
(which if removed, can bolster other activities, reduce
vulnerability, improve food security, increase wellbeing)
• Lack of transport for moving harvest products to storage and to market may be a
disincentive to produce (increases vulnerability, and reduces food security).
• Lack of electricity may hold back development of services in rural areas (both
public and private).
• Poor cooking technology results in unnecessary ill health for women and children
reducing their productivity (and threatening wellbeing).
• Lack of cheap, easily available, fuel forces women to spend large amounts of time
gathering fuel, and restricts the boiling of water and in some cases the adequate
cooking of food resulting in ill health (threatens wellbeing, increases vulnerability)
as well as limiting time available for other enterprises.
S
ource:
C
lanc
y,
S
kutsch and Batchelor
(
2002
)
51

formed in 1992 to link rural producers with the market for dried fruit in Europe. Within
three years, more than 50 women’s groups had taken up the solar drier technology, and
in 1995 the company exported more than 50 tonnes of dried fruit. The original food
security concerns are also being addressed: when they are not drying for profit, the
women use the solar dryers to preserve vegetables and fruits for home storage and
consumption. (Okalebo & Hankins, 1997)
Although energy can form a major constraint on women’s enterprises it should not be
forgotten that there are other significant barriers that can also affect enterprise start-up or
viability, such as lack of capital or cultural practices
14
.
10.2 Promoting Women as Energy Entrepreneurs
An energy entrepreneur is one who supports the energy economy by doing any one or
more of the following: producing, processing, distributing and selling energy or energy
resources. The liberalisation of energy markets is opening up new opportunities for the
provision of energy services. Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) are springing up,
many focusing on rural areas, offering the potential of good incomes. Women should not
be excluded from these opportunities – particularly when based on prejudices that women
are not interested in technical matters. Women are good candidates to be successful
energy entrepreneurs (Batliwala and Reddy, 1996). Women who live in rural areas know
local circumstances and understand local needs. A woman may be able to sell more
effectively to other women, and access to potential female clients is not hindered by
social constraints. Energy companies can also employ women as operation and
maintenance technicians at the local level. The water sector long ago began to train
women in the operation and maintenance of hand pumps. Women have proved to be
more effective in regular and preventative maintenance than men (Cecelski, 2000).
As in most business enterprises, women are more likely to be found among the micro and
small scale energy entrepreneurs; more likely to be dealing with biomass energy
resources; more likely to be 'involved in retail rather than whole-sale; more likely to
operate in the 'informal' rather than formal sector; and consequently, more likely to be
involved in parts of the economy that are insufficiently reflected in official statistics. As a
result, too many women entrepreneurs operate in a policy vacuum and have no automatic
recourse to supportive legal and policy structures.
Women are therefore to be found among small-scale tree farmers; producers, distributors
and vendors of fuelwood and charcoal. They also distribute and sell kerosene and related
equipment such as stoves and lanterns. A small number of women may be found in the
petroleum sub-sector where they own petrol service stations. Women have already made
their mark as energy entrepreneurs as stoves producers (see case study 23).
14
For further discussion of these barriers see for example: Clancy, Oparaocha and Roehr (2004)
52

Case study 23: Upesi stove project in Kenya.
The Upesi project was initiated in 1995 to promote the adoption of more efficient stoves
in rural areas of Western Kenya. Its goal was to improve living and working conditions
of women in rural households by enabling a significant and increasing number of women
and families to benefit from fuel-saving wood-burning stoves. The project has cooperated
with women’s groups and involved them in design and field-testing of the stove. The
women have been trained in producing, distributing, and installing the stoves.
Additionally, their marketing skills have also been improved. Thus, their ability to earn
their own income from stove-related activities has increased. Over 16,000 stoves have
been installed, providing significant poverty alleviation. The benefits to men and women
in the project areas include improved health and time savings for users of the energy
efficient stoves, as well as relief from pressures caused by fuelwood shortage (Khamati-
Njenga, 2001).
At the present time, the literature offers only a few examples of women working outside
of the more traditional areas related to household energy, such as producing solar panels,
manufacturing pumps and turbines, or owning power generation plants. Those examples
that do exist provide some important lessons in ways to enable women to become energy
entrepreneurs. Case study 24 describes a project in which women have been trained to
produce battery-operated lamps. An important element in the project is inclusion of
appropriate training and support to overcome knowledge, skill and confidence barriers
women face.
Case study 24: Battery-operated lamps produced by rural women in Bangladesh
A project, funded by the World Bank Energy Sector Management Programme
(ESMAP), has been running on the remote island of Char Montaz in the south of
Bangladesh since 1999 and aims to improve the lighting and indoor air quality of rural
households by replacing the traditional kerosene lamps with modern fluorescent
battery-powered lamps. The fluorescent lamps are produced and marketed by a
women’s micro-enterprise and, by 2001, about one thousand households were using
these lamps. The long term potential is good with a market of 20,000 households and
grid extension within the next 20 years highly unlikely.
The lamp business represents an important opportunity for the women to earn a
relatively good wage. If a woman constructs and sells two lamps a day she earns the
wages equivalent to a skilled labourer, a significant opportunity which both benefits her
family and improves her social status.
The remote community also benefits from the lamps, which have a high efficiency and
low energy consumption. The advantage over kerosene lamps is the reduced risk of fire,
as well as the elimination of smoke and other emissions with their negative health
impacts.
The project, from the start, has recognised the importance of the knowledge of rural
women about local conditions and has used major inputs by rural women in the design
of the energy service mechanisms. Recognising that women had gaps in their knowledge
of electronic components, and a lack of skills with the tools needed to work with the
components, the project gave appropriate training to ensure that reliable lamps were
53

produced. Training was also given in accounting and bookkeeping. Male family
members have also been encouraged to act as advisers to the women, especially on
marketing, sales, and operating battery-charging services, a new activity that has
developed out of the original project.
What are the indicators of success for the project? Taking gender issues into account;
using women’s existing knowledge in the project design; providing compensatory
training for gaps in technical and business knowledge; gaining male family members
support; providing income generating opportunities; and providing a service the
community wants (Khan, 2001).
Schemes designed to assist entrepreneurs to set up businesses supplying and servicing
energy technologies can unwittingly fail to take women’s particular barriers into account
and end-up discriminate against women. A project in Zambia to establish solar home
system installation and maintenance provided training for interested entrepreneurs. One
of the selection criteria was that the entrepreneur must have knowledge of electricity and
electrical systems (Munyeme, 1999). This criterion ruled out most women. The project
offered no supplementary training, and overlooked the possibility that a woman, despite
not having technical skills, could successfully own and run a business (as so many
already do) by employing people with the required technical skills.
Women can use other mechanisms to overcome the barriers to becoming energy
entrepreneurs, for example, through the formation of co-operatives. Through co-
operatives, strengths and abilities of members are synergised to achieve more than the
sum total of individual efforts. Co-operatives are particularly useful for marginalized and
poorer members of the business community since they can increase the bargaining power
of members and can force recognition of particular issues. The following case study (25)
shows how women in Mali came together as energy entrepreneurs in a more traditional
energy source: charcoal.
Case study 25: Women's co-operative for charcoal production.
In Mali, a local women’s charcoal making cooperative has facilitated the adoption of an
improved charcoal production technology: the casamance kiln. The traditional kiln costs
almost nothing, whereas the casamance kiln costs about US$200. The women’s group
has 25 members, who pay 20% of their profits into their common fund. The money was
used to acquire the vital components of the casamance kiln, that is, the chimneys, as well
as pay for attendants who watch over the kilns (Skutsch and Sanogo 2001).
Women do seem to find that working together provides solidarity and support to
overcome challenges. Case study 26 from Western Solomons demonstrates that women
working together as energy entrepreneurs does not necessarily meet male resistance.
Case study 25: Community-owned Microhydro System by Village Women in the
Western Solomons.
The women in Bulelavata, a small, remote village in the Western Solomons accessible
only by sea, used to live a subsistence lifestyle typical of women in tens of thousands of
54

other villages across the Pacific Islands. Then, in 1998, the community chose to begin the
process of establishing an energy-for-development project. In 2001, the community-
owned microhydro system, funded by the Australian International Greenhouse
Partnerships, Caritas, and the Provincial Government, was officially opened by the
Provincial Premier. The system produces 24kw and has 1.5 km of high voltage
transmission line enabling the community to sell power to the Provincial Secondary
School.
For the women of Bulelavata the energy project has had some significant and profound
impacts ranging from the practical, quantifiable advantages of lighting and community
income to qualitative outcomes such as solidarity and empowerment. The project design
of the Bulelavata community microhydro scheme used a women’s participatory action
agenda, exploiting “action learning” (or learning-by-doing). They had the decided
advantage of a context where a relevant project was happening in their lives, one in
which workshops could be grounded. The facets encompassed project policy support,
female project management, female role modelling at varying levels, specific women’s
awareness and training workshops (although community ones were also held in which
women participated), visits by women to other villages, management committee positions
for women, a new village institution for women, technical team leadership by women, and
logistical project support teams being given equal status to technical project teams. This
affirmative agenda was designed to encourage and facilitate active and meaningful
opportunities for participation by the village women, and operated within existing
Melanesian cultural and village religious mores while at the same time challenging the
boundaries of perceived gender roles through the medium of the new technology.
The Bulelavata village men say that the electricity project has changed their women; that
they are now more confident and outspoken and participate more in community
development activities. The men think this is a good outcome in terms of the whole
project, and rate it second only (by general consensus) to the community’s understanding
of “planning for tomorrow” (Bryce and Soo, 2004)
10.3 Promoting the Role of Women in the Energy Sector: Career Development
Does it matter if women are not employed in the renewable energy industry? Social
justice arguments of fairness or equality would imply that all women and men have the
right to the equal enjoyment of socially valued goods, opportunities, resources, and
rewards; and equal participation in decision-making about those goods (Clancy and
Roehr, 2003). Energy is a commodity which provides services and offers job
opportunities. Therefore, women and men should, based on equality principles, have
equal opportunities not only to make use of energy but also be able to participate in all
aspects related to energy, including employment. Women should be able to choose
whether or not to work in the renewable energy sector and not be excluded by artificial
barriers. From an economic perspective, can the renewable energy industry miss out on
the pool of female talent?
Experience tells us that women are by far under-represented professionally in the energy
sector. Although gender disaggregated data is difficult to find, proxy data would appear
to confirm women’s low representation in the formal energy sector. An example from
55

Zambia shows the low proportion of women among those who took part in the national
energy policy formulation process (Table 5).
Table 5: Participants in National Energy Policy Forum, Zambia, 2001
Sub-sector Total Number
of Participants
Number of Women
Participants
Percentage of
Women
Wood fuel 35 4 11%
Renewable Energy 31 1 3%
Petroleum 31 1 3%
Coal 22 3 14%
Electricity 39 3 8%
Energy
Conservation
36 3 8%
(source Chandi, 2001)
In part the low representation can be attributed to the low numbers of women graduating
in technical fields that would enable them to pursue careers in the energy sector. Table 6
gives gender disaggregated data for Nigeria on the numbers of men and women
graduating in science and engineering fields. Women make up only a small percentage.
This type of gender division is a global phenomenon
15
Table 6: Degree, diploma and certificate awards in energy related subjects in federal
universities of Nigeria disaggregated by gender
1993 / 94 1995 / 96 1996 / 97 1997 / 98
M F M F M F M F
Total no of 4,687 801 4,888 1,602 5,912 1,472 7,682 2,597
of graduates in all
disciplines
Graduates in Energy related disciplines
Engr/Tech. 274 10 345 41 436 51 424 39
Env. Science 69 5 93 9 86 16 79 5
Sciences 629 77 467 139 603 117 655 164
Federal Office of Statistics, Nigeria 2002
15
Before the end of the Cold War, women in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Block Countries were a
significant presence in the science and engineering fields. Since the Berlin Wall has come down, young
women in those countries appear to be adopting similar career paths as their sisters elsewhere in the
world.
56

Researchers in the North consider that the energy sector suffers from the perception that
it offers a professional career dominated by 50-year-old males, particularly in the
technical areas- which makes the sector unattractive to women (Clancy et al, 2001).
There are encouraging signs at least in the private sector. Energy companies are
beginning to recognize that it is not merely a question of recruiting women to help fill
professional vacancies, but also that women bring particular benefits to the workplace.
Women’s skills can be complementary to men’s, which leads to a more balanced and
efficient organisation. Recent initiatives to recruit more women include the ENEQO
16
project within the Electricity Industry in Europe, which aims to advance equal
opportunities by promoting the positive benefits brought to the working environment by
employing women. In Canada, the Oil and Gas Sector is promoting a diverse workforce
and adopting the approach of recognising the contributions people make as capable
individuals rather than as members of designated groups (Dowse et al., 1999).
Gender approaches in energy development and planning are intended ultimately, to raise
the visibility of women in the energy sector and in so doing enable women’s views to be
better taken into account and their needs addressed. To achieve this objective, it is
necessary to increase the opportunity for gender sensitive women and men to be involved
in all aspects of energy. Such aspects include energy planning and policy development,
energy research and engineering, management of energy systems and projects, energy
technology dissemination, energy enterprise, energy production and distribution, and
energy use. The involvement should cut across all levels of representation- national,
international and local-; as well as all types and forms of energy.
Equal opportunity policies by institutions and governments can help to increase the
numbers of women in the energy professions (case study 27).
Case study 27: Promoting women in the energy sector.
In the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), fully half of professional staff
are women. In most energy institutions, however, the participation of women is still
relatively small. In Latin America, the number of women participants in an energy
training course given by the Institute for Energy Economics in Bariloche, Argentina, has
risen steadily, from 10% in the 1970s, to 17.2% in the 1980s and 23.5% in the 1990s
(Torres, 1998).
For many women the experience of being part of a small minority working in the energy
sector can create the feeling of a sense of isolation. Sometimes this leads them to
abandon their careers; sometimes they leave to set up businesses with other women.
(Case study 28 describes the response of some women from the North to professional
isolation in the energy sector).
Case study 28: Windfang: women making energy for themselves.
A company (Windfang), owned by 200 women working on co-operative principles,
operates a 450 kW wind turbine, which is feeding into the national grid to the north of
16
http://www1.sydkraft.se/eneqo/home.htm
57

Hamburg in Northern Germany. The company grew out of an initiative by three women
who had grown disillusioned with the unsupportive male dominated working environment
they had encountered in the energy sector. Although most of the founding members were
technically oriented, the group is now multidisciplinary and has members of all ages,
from students to women professionals, and from a broad range of disciplines such as
theatre and economics. Of importance to most of the members is the peer support gained
from working within a group of women. Not all of the women work in the company but
have provided some of the finance for the company and have the self-gratification from
pragmatically working towards a cleaner environment. In addition, the way in which
decision making is carried out within the company was an important principle. The
women opted for a democratic structure which allows all members to elect the steering
committee and board, while major decisions are taken at a general assembly. One of
Windfang’s objectives is to increase the work experience of women in energy projects
and thus improve their chance of a good job in the energy sector. Having gained
confidence while working in a supportive environment several of the founding members
have now moved on to set up their own businesses or have found jobs in the renewable
energy industries (Delfs, 2000).
Networking is a potential solution to feelings of isolation. There are a small number of
professional organisations for women in energy around the world attempting to meet this
void.
Case study 29: Women's networks in the energy industry.
Ms. Mary M’Mukindia, the of the Petroleum Institute of East Africa says: “ I would
encourage women to enter this male-dominated industry as many companies do have
good gender policies. What you need is to establish an identity as a competent, ambitious
worker and not be turned into this nice lady who serves tea during meetings, or takes
minutes, or is constantly complimented on ‘how nice you look today’!. This is the quickest
male route I have seen to eliminating effective women competition. You will of course
now be called aggressive but do not worry, who isn’t! (Oparaocha 2001)
However, it is one challenge getting women into the energy sector; and another is
keeping women there. It is not only an issue of finding the subject stimulating but the
working environment has to be conducive to remaining there. A cultural change in
working practices that recognise women’s family responsibilities, such as flexible
working conditions and whole day nursery are strategies, as well as increased
involvement of men in child-care, which could contribute to bringing women into the
management of the energy industry and hopefully keep them there.
11 ENGENDERING ENERGY
In the previous sections we have looked at gender differences in energy use, how energy
can improve women’s lives directly and their families’ lives indirectly and the different
ways energy can play a role in women generating income. Energy can be a major item of
expenditure in the household and enterprises. Energy may be a barrier to improvements
in livelihood due to problems of accessibility, affordability, ability to understand and use
58

the energy resource, the energy conversion technology and associated equipment.
However, there are a number of other factors which hinder poor people from improving
their livelihoods, but as we have described earlier the barriers are sometimes different for
women compared to men and they are generally higher. These barriers include access to
raw materials, technologies, and finance, education and skill levels, confidence with new
and complex technology as well as the availability of technical back-up systems for
production and maintenance. In this section we will look at some of these barriers for
women and how they can be overcome.
11.1 Financial Barriers
Most poor households have little capital to help them acquire energy conversion
technologies and associated labour saving equipment, or to get grid connection or an LGP
cylinder. For women, there are additional problems of access to capital not faced by
men. Families are often the source of the type of capital needed for business ventures.
There maybe cultural barriers which deny women access to this source of family funds.
Banks and lending institutions have conditions for lending, such as collateral and credit
history requirements that exclude poorer borrowers. These requirements generally have a
greater impact on women, who may face legal restrictions making it difficult for them to
own land or other assets, or to take action without their husbands’ consent. They may
also be discouraged from borrowing or engaging in business by social and cultural
barriers limiting women’s activities and mobility. Illiteracy, which is more prevalent for
women than men due to less access to schooling can make formal loans virtually
impossible. Even though it has been well documented that women have a better record of
credit repayment than men, women still receive a disproportionately small share of credit
from formal banking institutions. In Latin America and the Caribbean, women constitute
only 7-11% of the beneficiaries of credit programs. In many African countries, women
account for more than 60% of the agricultural labour force and contribute up to 80% of
total food production - yet receive less than 10 % of credit to small farmers and 1% of
total credit in agriculture. A study of 38 branches of major banks in India found that only
11% of borrowers were women. (UNDP, 1995)
Access to technologies has in the past been promoted through donor-funded projects.
Recently micro-credit financing has emerged as a valuable tool for donors to provide
capital to poor people who were previously viewed as bad credit risks – especially poor
women. Many of the micro-credit programmes are modelled after the Grameen Bank in
Bangladesh, which offers women loans of small amounts of short-term working capital
without the need for collateral. Repayments are made at frequent intervals. By
establishing a credit history based on repayment of very small loans, women can graduate
to bigger loans to build up their business activities. It has to be kept in mind that the
amounts available under this type of financing are often insufficient to purchase many
small-scale energy technologies. To enable women to become energy entrepreneurs or
purchasing renewable energy systems or appropriate appliances for their home or
enterprise would need different levels of finance and longer time frame for borrowers.
However, projects aimed at enabling women’s access to technologies can still go wrong
if they do not also take into account the reality of women’s lives. A project in Uganda
59

which set out to encourage women entrepreneurs to purchase solar systems by offering
credit through a women’s bank failed to reach the target group because interest rates were
set well above levels women could meet, repayment schedules were too short and
collateral requirements did not match women’s resources (Sengendo, 2001). An example
of best practice in micro-credit is the ENSIGN project of the Asia/Pacific Development
Centre and UNDP, which combines micro-credit loans for energy services and for
corresponding income-generating activities for the poor, including women (see Case
study 30). The services are co-financed by a revolving fund and national financing
institutions, such as the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) Bank in India.
Women seem to be most comfortable taking out loans for energy equipment which can be
used for income generation.
Case study 30: An example of best practice in financing energy for micro-
enterprises: ENSIGN Project.
The ENSIGN project was implemented in eight countries in Asia in a UNDP-financed
project led by the Asia-Pacific Development Centre. Energy-linked micro-enterprise
portfolios were developed through micro-credit banks and institutions in each country. In
urban areas, connecting to the grid and more-efficient appliances were the most
important desires. In rural areas, however, renewable energy, coal briquettes, and diesel
fuels were preferred. In both rural and urban contexts, process heat and motive power
were more crucial to income-generation than lighting. The ENSIGN Revolving Fund
provided 36 per cent of total loan funds, national financing institutions 50 per cent, and
borrowers’ equity 14 per cent. Interest rates were 15 to 20 per cent, somewhat below
market rates, with repayment periods of 2 to 6 years. Both individuals and communities
were financed, and the average increase in income was 124 per cent (higher for the
community projects).
Many activities were financed, including garment making, embroidery, felt and leather
goods manufacturing, copper welding, utensil manufacturing, baking, cold storage,
rubber stamp making, beauty salons, grain grinding, threshing, fish drying and
powdering, soybean processing, rice husk cook stove, spice drying, beedi (flavored
handmade cigarettes) wrapping, cinnamon peeling, and rice processing.
Some lessons from the ENSIGN project include:
• Although this was not planned, the vast majority of borrowers were women, who
proved to be enterprising, innovative, and creditworthy.
• Significant benefits for women, in addition to income impacts, were time savings and
enhanced self-confidence from improved ability to support household income and
greater control over self-generated finances.
(Ramani 2002)
However, research is increasingly questioning whether women are able to fully utilise the
credit, and what degree of control they retain over the loans once disbursed. For
example, Baden et al. (1994) report a study in Bangladesh of 250 loan histories from
some of the leading micro-credit agencies that found on average 20% of loans to women
were used by male household members. A worrying aspect is that the larger the size of
the loan the greater the likelihood it will be appropriated by male family members. This
60

would be a particular cause for concern with the size of funding required for some
decentralised energy conversion technologies, such as PV solar home systems. One
possibility to prevent male appropriation of loans might be through the exercising of
social control. By working together women are able to build solidarity which leads to
their empowerment. Women feel in a position of strength to challenge their men in their
families, in other words, there is a shift in gender relations
17
. Women’s traditional savings
groups can be used as a model to encourage women to join together with the specific
objective of buying energy technologies by means of loans on a rotating basis from the
group (Denton, 2002).
Some energy technologies such as wind and micro hydro generators are generally too
large for individuals to purchase by themselves, but may be affordable sources of
electrical power for communities if they are purchased collectively. For example, the
Mali Multi-purpose platform is a well-known example of best practice in collective
ownership of energy (see Case study 6; Case studies 13 and 24 give other examples of
women's cooperatives).
11.2 Capacity Building and Training
To be able to participate more substantively at all levels in the energy sector, the
education profile of women everywhere has to undergo transformation.
Men also need to become more gender sensitive, not only in terms of the content of their
work, but also in their behaviour in the work environment. Table 7 summarises capacity
building needs for different stakeholders and suggests means to meet those needs.
More women will need to study science and technology based subjects in school, college
and University. All over the world enrolment of women in technical subjects lags far
behind that of men (see Table 6 for a not untypical example from Nigeria). If numbers of
women in key positions are important to re-ordering the gender and energy ‘playing
field’, especially as concerns appropriate policies and technologies to meet poor women’s
energy-related needs, then more women and girls must be encouraged and persuaded to
study technical subjects.
Technical training programmes can be designed so that they are more sensitive to
women’s needs, offered at times and locations compatible with women’s family roles,
and adapted to women’s levels of skills and confidence. Locations need to also take into
account women's access and specific constraints in travelling to these locations. Trainers
can be coached on gender concerns, or selected for their support of women’s enterprises
and social advancement. Trainers also need to be sensitive to the fact that women often
feel more comfortable in women only environments when acquiring new technical skills.
It is important also to develop schemes for encouraging and preparing girls early for
careers in science and technology. Role models are considered to play a vital role in
17
This is very much a GAD perspective and it should be pointed out that there is little empirical
evide3nce to support the view (Mayox, 2001).
61

encouraging young people to take specific career paths. Therefore, providing girls with
positive images of women professionals in the energy sector could be a simple but
effective way of encouraging young girls to study appropriate subjects for a career in
energy (Clancy et al., 2001).
Networking and advocacy by women’s organisations represent important ways of
promoting the acceptance of women as energy experts. In the Pakistan Oil and Gas
Sector, the Canadian agency CIDA has supported the development of a network of
women professionals to exchange experiences about overcoming the barriers they face in
their working life (Lele, 1998) (see case study 31). Unfortunately such initiatives are few
and far between in the energy sector.
Case Study 31: Capacity building through networking in the petroleum sector in
Pakistan
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has a Gender Equity Policy which
requires that efforts are made to integrate gender in all of its projects, including the
Pakistan Oil and Gas Sector Programme (OGSP). On the one hand, the general attitude
is that the petroleum sector [in Pakistan] is not a place for women – it requires fieldwork,
which is physically demanding and often dangerous. On the other hand, many senior
managers, in both the public and private sectors, recognised the need to attract the best
young graduates to their workforce as it rapidly evolves into a knowledge-based
employment field. These graduates include women. There may be fewer female students,
especially in the sciences, but many of them are the top performers at university.
Senior oil company executives were invited to two Gender Equity Seminars and were
encouraged by their positive response and ideas. With their support, professional women
were invited from their companies to get together for the first time at a Gender Equity
Workshop, and heard from them about the problems they face. There are women without
access to a women’s washroom, a doctor who cannot be promoted solely because she is a
woman, a mechanical engineer whose work was sabotaged, and others facing different
forms of harassment.
This workshop was an inspiring experience, hearing from individuals how they overcame
obstacles, or at least managed to survive them. It resulted in the formation of the Gender
Equity in the Oil and Gas Sector – Pakistan Petroleum Women’s Network (PPWN), a
group of professional women now meeting regularly to share concerns and to work for
improvements.
The women themselves have pointed out the need to increase their visibility as valuable
employees. They will be the stars of a 15-minute promotional film on women in the
petroleum industry. Newspaper coverage and TV and radio exposure of events and
accomplishments will also be organised. (Lele, 1998)
At the project level, capacity building can mean learning new skills and gaining
confidence in defining community problems and designing appropriate solutions.
Through implementation activities, it can also involve acquisition of technical skills, such
as bookkeeping, marketing, managing a plant, or learning about new energy technologies
and how to run them. In terms of policy changes, capacity building may mean promoting
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and facilitating the involvement of women’s organisations in decision-making processes,
and expanding the development opportunities for their members.
Table 7: Capacity building needs for mainstreaming gender in energy
(Karlsson and Clancy, 2004)
Target Group Capacity building need Means
National policy
makers
Sensitisation towards:
• Openness to try out new methods
and tools
• Willingness to make space and
strengthen women staff in
organization’s set up
• Advocacy through sharp media
and print messages
• Well structured and focused
interaction with researchers and
NGOs
Implementers of
energy programmes
• Sensitisation towards gender
issues
• Practical tools and techniques to
incorporate women’s role in
planning
• Field level workshops in local
language
• Exchange visits and interaction
with local organizations
working on gender issues
Village communities
• For men, sensitisation and
assurance that women can
meaningfully participate in
programmes while respecting
their traditionally accepted space
and roles
• Willingness to participate in
social empowerment process of
women
• Exposure visits
• Focus group discussions
NGOs
• Tools and techniques to
incorporate women’s role in
planning orientation towards new
methodologies
• Local level workshops
• Interaction with researchers and
policy makers
Many people view operating machinery as men’s work, not appropriate for women.
Technical experts and educators may feel this way, as well as men and women in rural
communities. In some areas, women are discouraged from running any kind of business,
and women are expected to stay at home taking care of family responsibilities. In other
areas, women engage in a variety of small income-producing enterprises in addition to
maintaining their households, but larger businesses are managed primarily by men.
Overcoming these prejudices to enable those women who want to use technology to have
access to training requires awareness raising in the community.
11.3 A Gender Sensitive Energy Policy Environment
There is no doubt that a gender sensitive energy policy would help ensure that both
women and men’s energy needs were equally addressed. The challenge is in engendering
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not only the content of such a policy but also the actual process of policy formulation and
implementation.
18
. Energy institutions tend to be male-dominated, particularly in the
professional posts. This creates situations where the issues identified and the solutions
offered have a male bias. Increased participation of women in the energy sector and
improvement of their status relative to men can help to incorporate gender as an integral
part of energy policies and practices, although it will not guarantee the adoption of
gender-sensitive policy goals. The case study from South Africa describes an outcome of
having more women in policy-making positions as well as active in key stakeholder
lobby groups.
Case study 30: Women mobilising for gender sensitive energy policies
In 1993 a small group of women activists in South Africa attended a National Energy
forum and were struck by the lack of women at the meeting. These activists requested that
more women be able to attend the Forum, and initiated a support group for women
participants. The women eventually formed a network: Women’s Energy Group (WEG).
WEG adopted an inclusive approach. Their activities after 1993 included improving
their own and other women’s technical skills; developing alliances, in order to be heard,
with energy professionals and broad based political organisations, pressuring political
bodies to place women and energy issues on their agendas. WEG participated in the
consultative process leading to the drafting of the Energy ‘Green Paper’, a preliminary
policy paper. The Green paper was explicit on the gender issues that need to be
addressed in the final policy document. A team of 6 men and 2 women was then
appointed to produce the final energy policy document in 1998. Despite intensive
lobbying by WEG, they failed to increase the number of women in the team.
In 1994, a female Deputy Minister for Energy, Minerals and Mines was appointed. In
1999 a woman who had long been a champion of gender issues was appointed Minister
in the same ministry.
The final energy policy document published in 1998 demonstrated a paradigm shift
towards equity, efficiency and environmental sustainability. However, it gave little
specific attention to women, despite an explicit acknowledgement of women’s
subordinate position and gender imbalances in the sector: women comprise only 11% of
the total workforce and 5% of management in the energy sector. Women’s issues were
assumed to be addressed under the categories of ‘the poor’ and ‘low-income
households’. (Annecke 2001)
There are some important lessons to be learnt from the South African experience
described in case study 30 in terms of trying to engender energy policy. There was
clearly a difference of opinion amongst activists about gender goals and whether or not
gender and energy issues could be achieved solely within the energy sector. Such
divisions weaken the message. It is also simplistic to expect that the appointment of a
woman minister will bring sweeping transformations overnight – gender relations are too
deeply embedded with the administration of ministries. Perhaps it is here that the critical
18
The topic of engendering energy policy is the subject of a separate paper by ENERGIA.
64

mass of gender sensitive men and women are needed.
Unavailability of appropriate information to stakeholders can also constrain engendering
energy planning and project implementation. Gender disaggregated data from qualitative
and quantitative research about gender based needs, capabilities and resources in the
energy sector is needed by planners, policy makers and management teams. The data is
needed at each step of the policy process – defining the issues, examining policy
alternatives, making policy choices, implementing policies, and evaluating results.
Women’s groups also need this type of data for advocacy activities as well as information
on available energy options and labour saving devices, and their impacts of their use on
the environment.
Budgetary allocations have the power to transform gender inequalities. The Energy
Ministry’s budget allocations demonstrate which areas of activity have priority. Which
area gets the larger allocation or any allocation at all: electricity generation or biomass
supply? A tool which is being increasingly used for highlighting the gender bias in
government policies is gender budgeting. Gender budgeting can be used to break down
and identify the differentiated impacts of public revenue allocations and expenditures as
they affect men and women. An analysis would look at inputs, outputs and outcomes.
Presenting Government Budgets in a gender disaggregated way helps raise awareness
about inequalities in Government Policies. Women in a number of countries have now
begun to apply this tool and the case study below gives the results of an analysis of the
energy sector in South Africa.
Case study 31: The South African women’s budget initiative.
The South African Women’s Budget Initiative in the energy sector has looked at the
budgetary allocations of the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) and at the
governance of the sector. In relation to the latter, the Initiative has argued that women’s
needs will not be truly addressed unless women have a major contribution to the
decision-making machinery of the sector. In 1995, an analysis of the gender composition
of the Council of ESKOM (the state owned electricity utility) showed that women made
up 2 of 18 members.
In terms of the budget, the focus was on the Energy Management Programme (EMP)
component, which determines policy formulation and implementation for the entire
sector. The DEM recognises in its policy statements that “gender issues and the role of
women in energy decisions” is one of the key issues facing the Department in achieving
its objectives. Despite this statement and the existence of an active and vocal group of
women researchers engaged in gender analysis of the household energy sector, only
2.7% of the EMP budget was allocated to projects related to gender or women. Between
1994 and 1997, research had been entirely confined to the household sector and there
had been no projects in sub-sectors such as agriculture, transport, industry and
commerce.
Source: “The Second Women’s Budget”, Debbie Budlender (ed.), 1997. IDASA, Cape
Town, South Africa.
65

It is considered that a shift towards a demand side approach in energy policy formulation
which looks at energy as an aspect of a social and cultural setting, rather than the
traditional supply side approach which focuses primarily on technology and resource
solutions, would contribute to better addressing gender energy needs (Karlsson and
Clancy, 2004).
11.4 Information
Ngoo and Shuma (2001) have summarised the reasons why women lack information
about energy and why this situation needs to be addressed:
Women need information in order to make informed choices about energy sources,
technologies and equipment. A number of factors play a role in addressing energy
information barriers: gender and energy lobby groups, infrastructure in information and
communication technologies, literacy levels
Publicity and marketing campaigns must contend with low literacy rates, undeveloped
market systems and weak communications. Radio and television programming could be
used to provide basic information in some areas. Over time, access to computers and
internet connections in village schools and community facilities could bring large
amounts of technical information into rural areas, but currently few people in remote
communities currently have computers and internet connections or the electricity supply
to power the technology. Places where women gather, such as markets or clinics, can
also be useful contact points with women for disseminating information about and
demonstrating new technologies.
Networking among women’s groups at the community, national, regional and
international levels provides a relatively simple way of sharing information about gender
and energy issues, but one which requires widespread organisation and technical support.
Case study 32 describes a sub-regional meeting in Central America which brought
women and men together to discuss gender issues in energy. One of the outcomes of the
meeting was the recognition of the role of a network in building capacity.
Case study 32: Networking for capacity building in gender and energy.
In October 1998, the Central America Gender in Sustainable Energy Network, (GENES)
was formed with the consensus of over 50 organisations ranging from women’s co-
operatives to agricultural producer associations and national energy agencies. This
network resulted from a workshop on the gender and energy nexus held in Antigua
Guatemala. Every one of the over 80 men and women attending the workshop engaged
in active discussion and participated in small working groups, on questions some as
seemingly basic as “what is gender?” Also discussed was its relevance to energy use and
management in the context of different development objectives; and how to approach the
challenge of increasing women’s involvement in decision-making and planning of
energy-related activities since their input is particularly relevant yet sorely absent
throughout the region, as it is around the world.
For most participants, this was a unique eye-opening event: never had they participated
in a forum that brought women and men together to address the different roles that each
66

plays in energy use and management. Just as women are traditionally left out of critical
decision-making, men are rarely invited to join discussions on topics involving women’s
empowerment. The broad range of perspectives—from women, men, technicians, energy
specialists, feminists, anthropologists and other development specialists—generated
lively and fruitful discussion, and ultimately led to a consensus on the need for an
ongoing forum for dialogue and capacity-building on these issues. (Winkler and Büttner,
2000)
11.5 Technology Meeting Women’s Needs
Technology adoption is subject to the cultural context, especially for women. This is
partly because of the multiplicity of their tasks, where certain orders of doing things
(gender roles) have to be maintained. Improved cooking systems are particularly prone to
rejection when the design is gender blind and the functioning is culture blind. The
example of solar cookers in Case study 33 attests to this.
Case study 33: Culture influencing energy technology acceptability.
Different frameworks of cultural preferences have clearly played a part in lack of
acceptance of solar cookers, more fuel-efficient stoves and biogas plants. Solar cookers,
in spite of their image as clean and cost-free in use, have not received widespread
acceptance even among the poor who are in desperate need of alternative energy. Tastes
or habits may define the parameters of potentially suitable energy sources and
technologies. In some parts of Sudan where breakfast is at 10 am and dinner is a 4 pm,
solar cookers may be culturally more acceptable than in places where breakfast is before
sunrise and dinner after dark. The latter is the case in most of India and Africa. (
Denton,2002)
Addressing women’s energy needs has in the past been through special programmes
mostly related to cooking, for example, the introduction of more efficient or less smoky
stoves, or encouragement to switch to solar power or biogas for cooking. Other
programmes have tried to involve women in the growing of trees to increase the level of
firewood supply. Such programmes have met mixed success. An analysis of a number of
energy projects with women as the intended beneficiaries, found that it was easier to
mobilise uptake of the technology if it provided women with financial benefits through
income generation. However, a number of other factors were identified as key
contributors to success:
• Access to markets and an effective marketing strategy for commercial activities;
• Innovative financing and credit arrangements for access to energy equipment
19
;
• Technical capacity building to enable women to operate and maintain unfamiliar
technologies;
• Involvement of women in the design, implementation and evaluation of energy
equipment intended to benefit them. (Karlsson and McDade, 2001)
19
Clancy (2001) has argued that, with the possible exception of stoves, micro-financing is of an
insufficient level to enable women to purchase most energy equipment. However, it would appear that
the international community has now begun to address this issue, see for example GVEP, 2004
(although gender was not a factor raised to any significant extent in the discussion).
67

Another factor of success in technology acceptance is the full participation of the
intended beneficiaries in all aspects of energy project identification, design, financing,
mobilisation, implementation and evaluation. There is often a wide gap between the
people who design and produce technologies and those who actually use them. Those
whose lives will be directly affected by project outcomes generally have the best
understanding of local needs, resources and dynamics. Since in many areas women are
primary users of energy equipment, it makes good sense for them to be involved in
designing and implementing projects to meet their own energy needs. Women already
have valuable knowledge about local conditions and resources. However, it may require
special efforts to ensure women’s participation. In many cases women traditionally are
excluded from decision-making processes and men are asked about women’s areas of
responsibility (see case study 34). There may be particular responsibilities and
constraints that keep women’s voices from being heard. Therefore, specific measures
will need to be adopted to enable women to effectively contribute, for example, separate
planning committees for women and men creating an environment where women feel
free to speak up.
Case study 34: If it’s about cooking, then ask the women
In Fateh Singh ka Purwa (India), a community biogas plant was installed to provide
cooking energy. Technically this plant can be considered a success, but socially a failure.
Male community leaders pointed out that they were not interested in energy for cooking –
they would rather have energy to power irrigation pumps, chaff cutters and milling
machines. Women were extremely critical about the plant. It was decided, without
consulting the women that the gas supply would be limited to 2 hours (8am-10am) in the
morning when the women were already in the fields. This fact was completely ignored by
the plant organizers. The gas therefore did not provide even 25% of the day’s cooking
and the women had to look for wood as substitute for the dung cakes, which went to the
biogas plant. (Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, 2001).
Additional education of women and women’s organisations about new energy options
and technologies can increase their ability to contribute to energy solutions, including the
adoption of cleaner fuels and equipment. Case studies 22 and 35 give examples of
women building energy technologies. Training was an important element in the project
success.
Case study 35: Women producing energy technologies
In Malawi, the Ndirande Nkhuni Biomass Briquette Programme involved training
women’s groups to produce briquettes from waste materials for use and sale as an
alternative fuel source. Women were involved with the design of the wooden briquette-
making machines, which are inexpensive and easy to maintain. Spare parts are easy to
get and local artisans have been trained by the project to make new machines when
necessary. The training focused on women because they are the main users of household
energy. The women’s groups also received training in maintenance skills,
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entrepreneurship and business management. As in the Kenya project, some women went
on to train others for a fee (Mabona, 2001).
12 EMERGING ISSUES
Gender and energy is a relatively new topic of research and our body of knowledge is
constantly expanding and concepts are being applied to new areas. Most of our
knowledge is based on gender and energy issues in rural areas of the South. Urban areas
and the North are new fields of research. This section briefly reviews three emerging
areas.
12.1 Gender, Energy and Poverty
Poverty is one of the world’s most fundamental issues, and urgently needs to be
addressed. Moving people out of poverty forms a cornerstone of much international
development policy. The way poverty is conceptualised has changed in recent years.
Initially it was defined very much in economic terms; people with an income of less than
$1 a day are considered to be living in extreme poverty. However, as research into
poverty has shown that there are more dimensions of poverty than low cash incomes.
When people we regard as “poor” describe their own situation, they consider that their
well-being is inadequate, for example, they feel a lack of access to sufficient levels of
food, water, clothing, shelter, sanitation, healthcare, and education. The change in
conceptualisation of poverty has lead to new ways of moving people out of poverty.
Although, there is still an emphasis on income generation through increasing the
opportunities for the poor to participate in markets, there has been a broadening of
strategies to enable the empowerment of poor people. Empowerment aims to address the
inequalities, including gender inequalities, which prevent people from influencing
policies and interventions which affect their lives. Increasing the security of poor people
by addressing the factors which create their vulnerability has become a part of
international development thinking.
How is energy seen in the new approaches to poverty alleviation? Energy is recognised
as one of the most essential inputs for sustaining people’s livelihoods. At the most basic
level, energy provides cooked food, boiled water and warmth. However, energy has not
been widely accepted within development circles as a basic need, as have water and food
(Clancy, 2004).
It has long been established that poor people mostly use biomass as their energy carrier
and that in many areas there is an increasing shortage in supply, which adds to the burden
of the women whose responsibility it is to collect. However, despite the fact that around
two billion people still use biomass fuels (World Bank, 1996), and the fact that these are
also the two billion poorest people on earth, there has been little attempt until recently to
analyse the energy-poverty nexus in depth.
Energy has an equity dimension: poor households use less energy than wealthier ones in
absolute terms. Less water is boiled for drinking and other hygiene purposes, increasing
the likelihood of water-borne diseases. Illness reduces the ability of poor people to
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improve their livelihoods and increases their vulnerability, not only preventing adults
from working effectively but also negatively effecting children’s learning by keeping
them from school.
Of the approximately 1.3 billion people living in poverty, it is estimated that 70% are
women, many of whom live in female-headed households in rural areas. Since women
generally have less access to resources and decision-making than men, many poor
female-headed households can be expected to be living in extreme energy poverty. It is
not only the supply of energy which will be constrained, but also the important services
for the household which will be affected, such as clean water provision. Their lack of
resources makes poor households vulnerable to changes outside of their control e.g.
drought.
Towards the end of the 1990s, there had been some discussion about providing energy
services for the poor, for example, the World Bank’s Rural Energy and Development:
Improving Energy Supplies for Two Billion People. However, it is during the
preparations leading up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, that a
shift towards a more explicit recognition of the role of energy in the fight against poverty
began to emerge. For example, UNDP began to advocate the adoption of a new global
target for energy as a prerequisite to fulfilling other international development targets of
the Millennium Goals adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2001. The target aimed
to halve the proportion of people without access to clean and affordable fuels and
electricity by 2015. The UK’s Department for International Cooperation (DFID) released
“Energy for the Poor” which set out its vision for the role of energy services for helping
the poor move out of poverty and how access to energy for the people can be facilitated
20
.
The World Bank’s Asia Alternative Energy Programme (ASTAE) recently undertook a
study to identify and quantify as far as possible the potential benefits of energy in
general, and of electricity in particular, to the poor (Heijndermans, 2002).
Box 4 summarises current thinking on the energy-poverty nexus.
12.2 Gender, Household Energy and Privatisation of the Energy Sector
The energy sector in developing countries is not immune from transformations that are
taking place in the global economy, which are intended to bring about increased
efficiency and lower costs, as well as increasing access. There are two particular changes
taking place that are likely to have specific consequences for poor people: privatisation
and commercialisation. Privatisation in the energy sector involves the sale of state
energy companies, particularly the electricity utilities, to the private sector, as well as the
opening up of the market for the private sector to provide other energy services. These
trends bring with them wholly new concerns that need to be studied: particularly, how the
private sector will respond to the demand from the rural poor for household energy
services. Will the poor be seen as a mass market needing creative financing programmes
to facilitate access to energy services, or will they be regarded as too high a risk,
providing too low a profit margin? Private sector electricity suppliers might consider
20
Table 3 shows how energy can help in reaching the MDGS.
70

Box 4 Current thinking on the energy-poverty nexus
• Approximately two billion people do not have access to ‘modern’ forms of energy, such as
electricity, and liquid fuels.
• Modern forms of energy are a necessary input for economic development and the elimination of
poverty. The substitution of inanimate energy for human energy has proven to be an essential
element in removing drudgery, and increasing well-being.
• But improved forms of energy are not sufficient conditions for development. Many ‘complementary
inputs’ are also required, including ‘end-use’ technology to convert energy into useful outputs, such
as illumination, milling, pumping, transport and communication.
• Conventional modern forms of energy (fossil fuels and electricity) will remain the fuel of first
choice for many poor people for many years to come, while traditional biomass fuels will remain
the main fuels of necessity.
f
•
• Biomass fuels are not always ‘renewable’ as sometimes they are harvested renewably and
sometimes ‘mined’ destructively.
• Poor people need energy for many tasks (lighting, cooking, mechanical power, heating and cooling,
communication) and they require multiple fuels (electricity is not enough).
• Women and children usually form the majority of poor people in any community; and women are
usually major users and suppliers of energy resources in marginalized communities.
• Poor people already pay cash for improved energy services, particularly for the convenience of
electric lighting and radios. Beyond this, the additional income to pay for modern energy services
will usually be associated with investment in sustainable (profitable) and productive energy end-use
activities.
• The fuels and technologies traditionally available to poor people result in very low energy
conversion efficiency. However, this efficiency can be improved both domestically, and in
commercial and institutional uses through changes in technology.
• The energy supply sectors of many developing countries are in the process of being restructured to
attract private capital. This poses both a threat and an opportunity for poor people. As energy
supplies are delivered on a more commercial basis, their availability to poor people may reduce.
However ‘unpackaging’ energy supply systems opens up opportunities for the private sector to
supply energy services to poor people who would do not have access under current arrangements.
• Funds from tax revenues, aid agencies and charities are unlikely to be able to provide energy
services directly to any but the smallest fraction of poor people. This means that market
mechanisms will have to provide the finance for improved energy services, but their extent and
effectiveness will have to be massively expanded to meet current unmet needs and the needs o
growing populations.
The State has a vital role to play in providing the ‘enabling environment’ that is necessary for the
p
rivate sector to supply improved energy services to poor people. Subsidies (including aid) may
well be essential, but they need to be applied with great care so that they may make markets rather
y them.
Barnett, 1999
than destro
themselves under no obligation to implement schemes with a high social value (for
example, lifeline tariffs sufficient to light one or two lamps) that many public utilities
have addressed. Since a disproportionate number of poor households are headed by
women, then women (at least in this group) might consider that the market also does not
benefit them if the private sector fails to recognise them as prospective clients. It is, as
yet, not clear whether privatisation will result in more, or less, access for the rural poor to
modern energy forms, although emerging evidence from India is not positive (Sinha,
forthcoming 2005). In some cases, the boundaries of existing services, originally
provided with an element of social welfare, are being retracted, as can be seen, for
example, in India where previously electrified areas are having services withdrawn based
71

solely on financial criteria (Ministry of Power, 2001). Conversely, privatisation might
contribute to sustainable livelihoods by providing new entrepreneurs with the opportunity
to enter the market by providing local level energy services in rural areas. Although this
is much to be hoped, the scanty evidence so far is not very encouraging. Barja and
Uriquiola (2001) report that following the privatisation of the utilities in Bolivia, there
have been no improvements in access to electricity for the poor in rural areas, whereas in
urban areas there was access by more than 95% in the lowest income quintile compared
with 86% prior to privatisation. Whether this trend is general is not known, although a
body of knowledge is beginning to emerge (see for example, Doig (1998)).
Commercialisation is a process of reducing public expenditure that also aims to reduce
the market inefficiencies induced by subsidies. For the energy sector, it has meant the
removal of direct subsidies on fuels and appliances, and a shift towards market-based
solutions in the provision of energy services. This has increased the cost of household
energy, particularly for lighting. Kerosene is the preferred option in non-electrified
households. Petroleum supply is in both public and private ownership, although generally
governments still control kerosene prices. Women are able to buy this lighting fuel in
small quantities, to match their cash flows, at reasonable prices. Although many
households would like to have access to electricity for lighting and LPG for cooking, the
method of payment does not always match the cash flow in low-income households.
Empirical evidence of women using micro credit for access to modern energy sources is
lacking (see case study 37).
In terms of addressing gender differences around energy choices certain modern
marketing strategies might be more ready to take gender differences into account when
analysing the potential clients and would disaggregate both between and within
households. Targeting of advertising would sell products to men and women in different
ways. A company could promote their new products (energy forms can also be seen in
terms of a “product”) through imaginative training programmes, which are client centred
taking into account availability and skills. The company would arrange financing for its
products and any associated equipment.
Market approaches would probably address gender issues from an efficiency basis.
Enabling equity or empowerment is not a market objective. However, these objectives
might be reached indirectly. For example, women who participate in the market as
entrepreneurs would certainly be empowered and may be move towards greater equality,
through increased status accrued from increased contribution to family income.
12.3 Gender, Energy and Climate Change
The international debate on energy and climate change has given scant attention to
gender issues. Denton (2000) commented that the climate change debate had essentially
been science driven and had lacked a social dimension. (Alber (2002) described the
negotiations around climate change as “a playground for economics addicts and number
crunchers".) Denton argued that if one analysed the social dimension of the effects of
climate change then gender issues clearly emerged. Climate change is likely to affect
food production and floods will threaten houses. Both endanger human security and it is
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the poor and vulnerable groups who will be most at risk since they have the least access
to resources to respond to the threats posed by unstable and shifting weather patterns.
Women feature strongly in the groups most at risk since they form the majority amongst
low-income earners and they play a key role in food security for the family. It is
estimated that 59% of the world’s food production (80% in some parts of Africa) is by
women (Denton, 2000). At present, we are in a period of uncertainty since no one knows
with any degree of certainty what the effects of climate change are likely to be on food
production. However, if the negative scenarios of increased crop failures become real,
then the fear is that women’s low incomes and role as food provider could become
negatively re-enforcing and increase their vulnerability and stress. Women will not be
able to afford to buy nutritious food to replace failed crops. In addition, their own calorie
intake will be reduced even further (in many cultures women eat last and eat least)
reducing their own energy levels (metabolic energy) on which so much of household
survival tasks depend on. In addition, the sorts of crops that will grow under new
weather patterns may require longer cooking; hence, food preparation could be more
energy expensive. Agricultural residues output could also fall, affecting both animal feed
and household energy supplies (including reduced dung production through lower food
intake levels for animals). Any reduction in biomass availability can threaten a
household’s capacity to boil water which in turn increases the transmission of water
borne diseases.
Southern Africa is heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Any increase in flooding or
droughts will contribute to reducing agricultural output and hence increase social
vulnerability. The role of women in food production in Southern Africa is crucial. Most
economically active women are employed in agriculture, which can in part be attributed
to male urban migration, wars and changes in socio-cultural structures. In Mozambique,
for example, in 1998 for every 100 men working in agriculture, there were 153 women
similarly employed (quoted in Wamukonya and Rukato, 2001). In Southern Africa,
women will be expected to respond to the changes brought by changes in weather
patterns. However, they tend to be less educated than their male counterparts, generally
have less land to work, and less capital and access to extra farm labour. This reduces
their capacity to respond to outside threats and hence their vulnerability increases.
It was only after the so-called COP-6 meeting (international meeting on climate change)
held in The Hague in November 2000, that the need for mainstreaming gender into
climate change debates and responses became more clearly heard. A first step by
governments towards addressing women’s issues came during COP-7 in Marrakech in
autumn 2001. A proposal put forward by the Samoan delegation to improve the
participation of women in the representation of Parties in the international climate
process was approved. The following COP-8 included a side event dedicated to gender
aspects. Despite the increasing presence of gender advocates, the specific dimension of
women’s rights has not been as well incorporated as have, for example, indigenous
peoples’ rights (Alber, 2002).
In part, this failure to incorporate gender into the international debates on climate can be
attributed to a lack of vigorous gender analysis in the field, with only a small number of
73

researchers contributing to the debate. Wamukonya and Rukato (2001) have attributed
the lack of attention to gender in climate change fora to a number of factors:
• gender is only just beginning to be mainstreamed into energy policy making;
• the gender and energy debate has not kept pace with international developments
in climate change;
• the links between gender and energy, climate change and its adverse impacts have
not been well articulated at international, regional and local levels; and
• the climate change agenda is set at the international level and therefore fails to
address what is in effect experienced at the local level.
Alber (2002) attributes the gender and energy debate not keeping pace with international
developments in climate change to the complex language used during the negotiations
which can be a barrier to “outsiders” wishing to break into the debate. She sees capacity
building as an important part of getting gender onto the climate agenda.
Wamukonya and Skutsch (2001) took Denton’s discussion of the vulnerability aspects of
the effects of climate change further and identified a number of additional areas where
gender issues could play a role: responsibility for the emissions; mitigation of emissions;
and adaptability to climate change. In terms of responsibility for emissions, ecofeminists
would argue that industrial economies and their production processes stem from a male
dominated culture and that if female norms dominated the economy, industry would look
very different and probably be more environmental friendly. However, one has to
consider if it is either feasible or useful to determine whether or not women or men are
responsible for specific Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions linked to climate change.
This type of analysis might lead to arguments which would distract from solving the
problems arising out of the environmental crisis facing us. There are a number of
international instruments which have been negotiated to mitigate the production of
GHGs, for example, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which allows for
technology transfer of energy efficient technologies from the North to the South.
Currently, the approach under the CDM is gender neutral, it assumes that energy is
gender neutral and so does not deliberately set out to specifically target men or women
and as a result misses out the gender differences in energy technology needs and
capabilities. Women generally have a lower confidence level to spontaneously take up
technologies, but with the right sort of training and support can do so most
enthusiastically and successfully (see for example, case studies 6, 13, 21, and 35). This
would suggest the need for technology transfer projects which specifically target women
both to meet their specific needs and to bridge their technical knowledge gaps. However,
not everyone supports this approach, fearing male resentment and backlash (Wamukonya
and Skutsch. 2001). An alternative might be to adapt strategies to local circumstances,
and where appropriate a family or partnership approach could be employed or to use
poverty alleviation as a point of entry.
Voices from the South have called for assistance in adaptation to the effects of climate
change, such as adjusting agricultural systems, flood control and health services.
However, unlike with mitigation, there is no agreed programme for this approach. If any
programmes should materialise, it would be important that at least a gender dimension
74

should be recognised and appropriate strategies developed. Again, it would need to be
debated whether or not a woman-focused approach would be strategic for achieving
goals.
13 CONCLUDING REMARKS TO PART II
In the second part of the text we have examined a number of issues in relation to gender
and energy, applying some of the concepts we introduced in Part I. Gender and energy is
a relatively new field of research and new ideas and issues are continuously emerging.
Our knowledge about gender issues in energy is also expanding. As we have seen,
gender and energy, was originally considered to be women and energy which focused
entirely on cooking. Now we know that the situation is more complex - that men do play
a role and that women use energy for more things than cooking. We are also being to
build up a body of ideas about how to address many of the barriers that face women in
relation to their energy needs. Again if one looks at the early literature the examples on
gender and energy mainly came from fuelwood collection and use, often adapted to the
forestry sector. We are now beginning to amass case studies from within the energy
sector and across a broader base than fuelwood (although this continues to be a very
significant issue for women).
We hope that this paper can help the reader understand the issues in gender and energy
and be able to apply them in their own context.
75

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