Energy : Core Text

Energy is a key factor in the pursuit of sustainable development due to its linkages with poverty and environmental degradation. Rural livelihoods are crucially affected by the availability of energy sources.

National energy policies need to target rural and poor households in peri-urban areas in order to enable the poorest to pursue sustainable and productive livelihoods. The following issues show how gender may be linked with energy issues.

Existing gender divisions of labour lead to women being particularly affected. They often spend four to six hours per day and walk up to ten kilometres to gather 35 kg of firewood. In their role as collectors of firewood; women are often unfairly blamed for deforestation. Their role in environmental destruction tends to be overemphasised in contrast to the role of large scale commercial enterprises who are rarely implicated.

Lesson: Forestry, conservation and energy supply policies need to be oriented around the sustainable livelihood priorities of rural women and men and need to distinguish between the impacts of small and large energy users.

CLICK HERE FOR USEFUL PROMPTS IN THINKING THROUGH GENDER, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION LINKAGES.

The existing gender division of labour in many communities leads to women being responsible for the greater burden of household work and management. Women use energy for cooking, heating water, lighting, ironing and space heating. Energy therefore is an important factor in the daily lives of women at the household level.

The availability of cheap and accessible energy enables women to devote more of their energy to productive activities. Labour-saving devices can ease the domestic burden of women in poorer households. Within poor urban and rural households many women are involved in informal labour which may be home based.

Lesson: The domestic energy needs of women need to be secure to enable them to raise their productivity.

Women make decisions about choice of energy in accordance with criteria of cost, convenience and accessibility. But their decisions about the timing of energy usage for cooking may be constrained by other demands on their time, preventing them from taking advantage of electricity off-peak rates or solar power sources.

Lesson: The specific needs and constraints of women need to be addressed in national energy supply policies.

Whilst women are the major primary users of domestic energy, due to prevailing social norms, it is often the case that men control the finances and thus have the final say about choice of energy. Where energy decisions are made by men, recreational appliances, such as radios, may be purchased before energy saving devices used by women. The appropriation of new energy technologies by men may mean that women perceive batteries or electricity as not applicable for them to use.

Lesson: Messages concerned with energy usage and conservation need to understand gender differences in perceptions and control over finances.

The need for energy may involve choices which impact on the education of girls. Girl children are withdrawn from schools before boys to undertake fuel gathering for the family.

Lesson: Provision of energy to rural areas can be an important way of promoting gender equality in terms of girl's education.

Environmental conservation cannot always suffice to persuade women about the importance of interventions aimed at increasing energy efficiency. For example, the introduction of improved stoves cannot be effectively promoted on the basis of fuel saving since this is unlikely to be a priority for women compared with other concerns such as high costs, reduction in smoke, time saved, cooking time, heating, and so on. Unless women are consulted the expected fuel savings will not be achieved and the new stove designs will be rejected.

Lesson: The involvement of women in energy efficiency projects should take measures to ensure that women benefit directly from the projects, and that the targets relate to the priorities of women. Women need to be involved in the testing and evaluation of improved stoves to ensure it meets their own criteria.

USEFUL PROMPTS IN THINKING THROUGH GENDER AND ENERGY LINKAGES

Gender, energy and environmental degradation

• Do national policies on energy match up with policies on rural livelihoods and sustainable development?
• Within the household, who is responsible for collecting, transporting and/or purchasing biomass energy supplies?
• How much time do women, men and children spend on obtaining energy supplies?
• How do men and women explain the causes of ecological degradation and scarcity of wild products?
• How do men and women view their own behaviour in this context?

Energy needs and the gender division of labour

• How much time do women and men spend on 'drudgery' activities which could be eased by labour-saving activities?
• Do energy conserving projects take account of the priorities of men and women in overall household energy planning e.g. womenís income earning opportunities?
• Do energy conserving projects take account of the constraints and choices made by women concerning energy usage?

Gender and energy-related decisions

• Who makes decisions over energy usage?
• Are energy usage and conservation messages gender disaggregated?
• How do men and women use current sources of energy?
• How are energy technologies gendered?
• What strategies are in place to ensure that girls are not prevented from attending school by the need to obtain fuel?

Energy efficiency

• Have new stove designs taken account of the different priorities of women?
• How have women and men changed their cooking practices, selected types of food, quantity of food, number of meals etc?
• Do both women and men participate and give their views in the field testing of new technologies?
• How are women and men likely to benefit from improved stove design?

Agarwal, A. and S. Narain, 1991, Global warming in an unequal world: a case of environmental colonialism. New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment.

Mehta, L. & Joekes, S. (1998) Gender, Adjustment and the Environment: Report commissioned by IDRC, Canada. Brighton: IDS

Directorate General for International Cooperation of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1990) Women, Energy, Forestry and Environment. Policy on an operational footing: main points and checklist. Women and Development Paper No. 4

Sweetman, C. (1996) Gender and Development: Urban Settlementí. Gender and Development Vol. 4 No.1.

Makan, A., 1995, Power for women and men: towards a gendered approach to domestic energy policy and planning in South Africa, Third World Planning Review Vol. 7 No. 2.

UNDP (1997?) UNDP Initiative for Sustainable Energy. Energy and Atmosphere Programme (EAP) UNDP.

©1999 DFID