GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN ENERGY SECTOR

Concerted actions are required at multiple levels of policymaking, implementation, budgeting, and monitoring to promote equal participation of women in the energy sector. Gender- sensitive policies and practices are necessary to create opportunities for women across energy value chains, including at workplace and marketplace. Suhela Khan, Country Programme Manager WeEmpower Asia at UN Women, in conversation with TCA Avni for Energy Future talks about enhancing women’s access to sustainable energy and developing their leadership and entrepreneurial skills in renewable energy.

- TCA Avni

Men and women are impacted by lack of access to affordable energy in different ways – could you tell us a little more about this and about how policy and programmes can be more gender sensitive?

Women and men have different energy needs stemming from their varied roles at homes, communities, and workplaces. In most developing countries, women to a large extent are responsible for household and community energy provision. They are commonly responsible for providing lighting, heating, and cooking in households and tend to oversee the smaller, daily household energy transactions. Moreover, they assign different attributes to the same product or service that impact their decisions. For example, a UN Women’s study on assessing women’s demand and willingness to pay for renewable energy products and services, supported by DFID, found that safety, reliability, affordability, and absence of pollution were the drivers for female-headed households to purchase renewable energy products. For male-headed households, low electricity bill and absence of pollution were the key drivers for renewable energy product purchase. Gender-responsive energy policies must recognize women’s gender-specific needs and demands and translate these insights into targeted initiatives to support women’s economic empowerment in the decentralized sustainable energy sector.