Create gender aware policies on renewable energy

In many African communities, women and girls face the largest burden of not having access to modern clean energy.  

More often than not, it is women and girls who have to walk long distances to collect fuel wood, and it is them who spend their days ingesting harmful air pollution from kerosene and wood fires as they cook, care and provide for their families.

It is clear that clean renewable access is a powerful lever for the economic and social empowerment of women and, when that energy comes from renewable sources, the socioeconomic and health benefits are amplified even more.

The transition to clean renewable energy eases the burden of household chores, which usually fall on women. Clean energy for cooking saves the time spent gathering dirty fuels and reduces exposure to indoor air pollution responsible for about 226,000 premature deaths per year, according to Health Newborn Network report.

Indeed, access to clean renewable energy and the consequent time savings enable women to avail of opportunities for skill-training, which can help them to earn an income as an employee or even start their own business.

For instance, the World Bank paper indicated that the household electrification in rural communities led to a significant albeit small increase in women’s non-farm self-employment and had a positive effect on girls’ schooling in countries such as India. The clean renewable energy not only helps earn an income but also enhances productivity.

It should be noted that the energy supply chain gives women opportunities to earn higher wages and upskill as compared to traditional income-generating activities.

Since many clean energy jobs go to unskilled and semi-skilled workers, they could provide a viable alternative for women, who are less likely to have the education or training required to work in the formal sector.

The diverse workforce makes good business and social sense, yet men tend to dominate energy supply chains. The renewable energy sector, which includes a greater proportion of females in the workforce, could show the way forward.

And despite energy access and greater employee diversity, gender disparities still persist in many different aspects.

For energy access to benefit women, policies need to be “gender aware”, that is, they must account for social hierarchies and differences in energy use among men and women.

As an example, a gender-aware policy would take into consideration that women in rural communities often do not own land. So, men are likely to control and benefit from renewable energy systems that require land such as solar panels.

Therefore, renewable energy cannot be viewed in the vacuum. The conversation about renewables has largely been isolated and there is an emphasis on how solar power could reduce emissions, but its diverse ramifications are yet to become integral to policy making.

It is clear that distributed renewable energy can transform women’s lives. The government should build upon the connections between energy access, agriculture, water availability and gender equity.

The government’s energy initiatives must also create frameworks that power multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and mainstream women all along the value chain. With such synergies and gender-aware policies, that will be a significant step to ensure women get their due from clean energy access.

Patrick Edema,   [email protected]