World Parliamentary Forum on Sustainable Development (2017)

World Parliamentary Forum on Sustainable Development

September 6-7, 2017

Bali

Women’s Participation and Sustainable Energy

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly, has adopted the Declaration on
“Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which contains 17 Goals and
169 targets of Sustainable Development (SDGs).

The Bali declaration on September 2017 underlined that eradicating poverty in all its forms and
dimension, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable
requirement for sustainable development, recognizing gender discrimination while reiterating its
commitment to achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions in a balanced and integrated
manner and in order to leave no one behind our focus today is on specific goals : we address the Women’s participation and sustainable energy

Introduction

Energy is a major challenge for public and private policies. It brings together several concerns related to
socio-economic, environmental and climatic issues. Today, an imperative of “energy transition” is essential in the ways of producing, consuming and thinking energy to fight against poverty and energy inequalities
The energy transition is not only an environmental problem but a major economic problem. And as often in development, women play an absolutely central role.

More specifically, renewable energies are very often characterized by a decentralized harvest, particularly for solar energy, for small wind turbines and for biomass (wood, biomass waste, etc.). In countries where we are closer to a subsistence economy, women are particularly sensitive to avoiding expenses for the purchase of fossil fuels: In fact, since energy is often a precious and a rare resource, it must of course be used effectively, and here too, women have a central role because they consume some of the energy itself.

But why ONLY focus on women’s access to energy?

Men and women are affected differently by energy policies due to their varying roles at home, communities and work places. The rural women are engaged predominantly in agriculture and in small-scale income-generating activities often without access to dependable energy (for mechanical power for agricultural operations, food processing, water pumping and irrigation). This, coupled with climate change related risks, exacerbates the drudgery of their daily work and stifles their economic prospects. Also when energy is scarce, collecting leaves, twigs and dung for fuel is often a girl task. Recent research has shown that provision of electricity frees up women’s time by increasing their efficiency and more than 30 per cent of the global workforce in the modern renewable energy sector are women according to a recent survey.

The World Development Bank has issued on 2012 a report that describes and evaluates the evidence on
the links between gender and energy focusing on increased access to wood fuel through planting of
trees and forest management; improved cooking technologies; and access to electricity and motive
energy. Many developing countries have set explicit targets for electricity access. In most countries, electricity is not used for cooking, and therefore does not directly substitute for polluting and time-consuming traditional cooking technologies and fuel sources.

In developing countries, in particular, women are particularly sensitive to avoiding expenses for the purchase of fossil fuels and, on the contrary, to equip themselves so as to be able to harvest the energy that arrives anyway on site (water, sun, wind). In fact, the concept is often to ensure that women farmers are also energy producers. Women are sensitive to access to information including access to health information, and in poor countries, to have access to Internet requires the prerequisite of electrification. This is a decisive area for women too.

What roles can women play in enabling access to energy ?

A UN Women’s research found that there is a strong willingness to pay for clean energy alternatives such as solar lights, solar home systems, and solar pumps. The opportunity for sustainable energy entrepreneurship is quite significant for women.

Many business models are possible when women act as agents of change in access to clean energy. As entrepreneurs, women could play a significant role in fostering inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Since women hold strong social capital in communities, they are better able to reach out other women to generate awareness about clean energy solutions and its positive impacts on their lives. Given the large amount of time spent by women collecting fuel, there is potentially a scope for increasing women’s employment in income generating activities by making wood fuel more accessible.

What are the challenges to accessing energy?

Most of the time women do not have control over the type of energy used with limited awareness about renewable energy solutions. As per a UN survey, women also felt that they lacked technical skills. The gaps identified in accessing training for renewable energy were quality, distance, and cost. On the supply side, service providers identified difficulties in communicating to women customers. Including women in the supply chain, was also identified as a key issue. Another major barrier is the lack of skilled personnel for installing, maintaining and servicing renewable energy products.

What are the Key gender issues in the energy sector?

• Energy policies are considered to be socially neutral. In poor countries, however, they have different effects on men, women and children.
• Energy poverty and inequalities of access are at various levels: women are over represented among poor people who do not have access to energy and offset this need by collecting traditional fuels.
• Women have less access to financing and training related to the energy sector.
• They are often excluded from energy decision-making processes at all levels (households, local or
  national communities).

We consider that Energy interventions can have significant gender benefits which can be realized via designed projects and targeting of interventions based on a context-specific understanding of energy scarcity and household decision-making.

The impact of interventions designed to promote energy access depends on household decision making,
and, in particular, how women’s preferences, opportunity, cost of time are reflected in those decisions

Recommendations

It is very important:

1. To ensure the participation of men and women in all stages of projects and political choices.
2. To put in place subsidies or credit access tools targeting poor households to promote their access to energy services.
3. To support the development of women’s entrepreneurship in the energy sector.
4. To integrate women into technical training activities for the energy professions.
5. To promote the adoption of modern alternative energy that meets the needs of poor women and families (wind, solar, hydrological or biomass)
6. To train women and their groups on gender responsive energy planning and to enable their effective participation in policy making.
7. To work with civil society, energy enterprises and local and state governments to identify, train and mentor female energy entrepreneurs, business associates and technicians to enhance their technical, marketing and business skills.
8. To strengthen women’s capacities to effectively participate in decentralized clean energy value chains as managers, assemblers, distributors and service providers.
9. To increase access to wood fuels through planting of trees and forest management
10. To increase access to improved cooking technologies
11. To increase access to electricity and renewable energy, in order to provide happiness and generate positive impacts for women

Anouar Gharbi

General Secretary

Geneva Council for International Affairs and development / GCIAD

www.gciad.ch

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