2.5   What Can be Done to Create Gender-Sensitive Energy Policies? 4

Build Awareness of Different Energy Needs of Men and Women

For the most part, policymakers do not take into account the differences between men and women relating to distribution of, and power over, energy services. As a result, policies generally do not recognise that there is a gender bias in energy services, and women’s energy needs tend to be marginalized in policy documents.

Energy planning that is implemented in a gender-neutral way misses important issues and inadvertently discriminates, usually against women. For example, a policy to promote the use of electricity by small enterprises may neglect the fact that many of women’s income-generating activities use process heat (such as for food preparation and processing, beer brewing, and pottery making), for which electricity may not be the cheapest option. Policies to promote effective distribution networks for LPG would offer an energy form more compatible with the need for affordable access to process heat.

Promote a Gender-Mainstreaming Approach

An engendered energy policy would recognise that women and men have different energy needs due to their differing household roles, responses to crises, and coping mechanisms and would offer energy technologies and services that match those needs. Engendered policies can be reached through gender mainstreaming, an approach that ensures that the concerns and needs of both men and women are considered in all planning and policymaking and that all policymakers are aware of the needs of men and women in relation to their roles and responsibilities.

Increase Women’s Participation in the Energy Sector

An engendered energy policy involves more than the creation of a gender-sensitive set of energy-related goals. The actual process of policy formulation and implementation needs to be engendered. Energy institutions tend to be male-dominated, particularly in the professional posts; as a result, the issues identified and the solutions offered often 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. Engagement of women’s groups may be important for incorporating gender issues into energy policies. A shift towards a demand-side approach, which looks at energy as an aspect of the social and cultural setting, rather than the traditional supply-side approach which focuses primarily on technology solutions, would contribute to better addressing gender energy needs.

Collect and Use Disaggregated Data

In each step of the policy process – defining the issues, examining policy alternatives, making policy choices, implementing policies, and evaluating results – policymakers should specifically address how their decisions will differentially affect various population subgroups. This requires use of data sets disaggregated by sex and other social and economic variables to determine who is using what forms of energy to do what.

It is important to assess the impact of interventions not only on women’s time and work profile but also on their self-realization and control over resources. In many households, the division of labour within the family is such that all the visible activities that involve money transactions (physical flows) are taken care of by the men. Men even get involved with women’s traditional area of energy when it has to be purchased, for example in the purchase of batteries for radios. Recreational equipment, such as TVs and radios, may be bought before labour-saving equipment for domestic chores. Hence, when overall family income increases, the impact of the increase in income influences women’s lives last, if at all. There is also very little information on the impacts of renewable energy interventions on women’s work, in part due to lack of disaggregated data. At times, savings in one area of drudgery can result in increased drudgery in another area.

Disaggregated data at the monitoring and evaluation stage can lead to further policy development or modifications. For example, monitoring of a policy intended to provide decentralised energy services for income generation might reveal that women’s uptake is less than men’s because women lack access to the capital and collateral (such as land title deeds) needed for business start-ups. New policies could be introduced to overcome these barriers. However, it is important to recognise that these new policies might have to be generated in other sectors than energy, which underlines the need for an integrated approach to addressing energy issues.

Introduce Gender Budgeting

In principle, public expenditures on social services and infrastructure are allocated on a gender-neutral basis. In practice, however, men and women have different needs and they use and benefit from services differently; budget allocations may not reflect those differences. Budgetary allocations have the power to transform gender inequalities. One approach to ensuring that the needs of women as well as men are met is for government budgets to be gender disaggregated. Gender budgeting is a tool that can be used to break down and identify the differentiated impacts of public revenue allocations and expenditures as they affect men and women. Any analysis should look at inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

Initially, gender budgeting was done by experts; more recently, a more participatory approach is being used in which communities are consulted. This approach helps to increase women’s participation in a process they might initially find “too technical.”

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Commonwealth Secretariat, and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have undertaken a collaborative effort, the Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives (GRBI), to support government and civil society in analysing national and/or local budgets from a gender perspective and applying this analysis to the formulation of gender responsive budgets.

Define the Elements of Gender-Sensitive Energy Policies

Like any sectoral policy, energy policy has a multidimensional character: it contains political, economic, environmental, and social elements. Each of these elements has a gender dimension.

The political aspect of energy policy relates to the way in which the use, production, provision, and distribution of energy services are organised. Through political processes, various competing and convergent societal interests can be reconciled, including those related to gender differences.

The economic aspect of energy policy involves the financial resources available for implementation. Financial provisions are needed to promote the implementation of gender-mainstreaming, and pricing mechanisms and financial instruments should be analysed for differential impacts on men and women.

The environmental sustainability aspect of energy policies needs to recognize that in many cases men and women are affected differently by health problems related to energy use and production. Energy policy can offer distinctive solutions based on men’s and women’s differing roles and experience.

Energy policy also has a social aspect, since availability of energy services is central to sustainable human development. Improved access to energy services can reduce inequalities between men and women, rich and poor, and other population groups. Energy services can also contribute to women’s empowerment.

The four general aspects of energy policy listed above need to be correlated with three issues that lie at the heart of women’s energy needs: availability, affordability, and safety. The multidimensional aspects of energy policy can be combined with gender issues in the form of a matrix. Although the specific content of the matrix will vary according to local circumstances, the matrix can be used as a model for how to incorporate gender issues into the content of energy policy (Table 2.5).

Table 2.5
The Gender-Aware Energy Policy Matrix

Advocate for Gender-Sensitivity in Energy Policymaking Processes

There are a number of different, sometimes overlapping, rationales for incorporating gender sensitivity into energy policies, and different stakeholders may be more or less responsive to different arguments and viewpoints. The primary rationales include:

Welfare: Lightening women’s daily burdens, for example, by introducing more fuel efficient stoves to reduce time spent in wood collection (without trying to change their social roles or opening new doors for their advancement).

Efficiency: Increasing the effectiveness of energy activities and interventions by taking into account the different needs, constraints, and perspectives of men and women as prospective beneficiaries.

Empowerment: Aiming to transform women’s lives by promoting greater self-reliance based on increased skills, income, social status, and decision-making power and enabling women to take control of their own transformation process.

Equality/equity: Working towards a fairer distribution of rights, power, and money between men and women in a society.

Poverty alleviation: Since so many of the world’s poorest people are women, addressing extreme poverty and hunger through energy policies and programmes that take into account the particular needs and constraints of women

Further Reading

From Rio to Beijing: Engendering the Energy Debate, by Elizabeth Cecelski, in Energy Policy 23, No. 6 (June 1995), pp. 561-575. New perspectives in the energy sector and new approaches to gender issues are especially conducive to reopening the debate on the role of women in energy policy and research. The author suggests that mutual concerns in energy forums and gender circles, jointly addressed, could further both the Rio energy programme goal of sustainable development (an outcome of UNCED in 1992) and the Beijing Women’s Platform for Action (coming out of the Fourth Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995). While not exhaustive, specific issues in need of gender research are highlighted among areas of current and future energy policy concern: demand analysis and management, promoting the transition to more efficient fuels and technologies, energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, and sustainable transport systems.

“Gender Issues in Energy Policy,” by Jyoti Parikh, in Energy Policy 23, No. 9 (1995), pp.745 -754. Gender issues have received attention at the micro-level in terms of technological interventions such as cook stoves, biogas, solar cookers, and wood plantations. They have yet to be addressed in macro-level policies. Women’s needs for energy vary, depending on whether they are in urban or in rural areas, their stage of economic development, and whether they are economically active. This article emphasises the need for a better understanding of these issues for women engaged in different sectors, including agriculture, transport, industries, household, and the energy sector itself. Deeper investigations, analyses, and action for gender issues are needed through surveys, laboratory experiments, macro-policy modeling and analysis, and technology development and production. This article makes a plea to include gender issues in macro-level energy policies in such areas as energy investment, imports, and pricing.

“Durban Declaration,” Women in Energy Ministerial Meeting, 11-12 December 2000, Durban South Africa. Available online at http://www.villagepower2000.org/news/article.asp?id=1440. This declaration was made by the African Ministers responsible for the development and utilisation of energy, in partnership with representatives of international organizations, NGOs, and the private sector, at the Women in Energy Ministerial Meeting, part of the Second Africa US Ministerial Conference to discuss and explore possible policy, financial, and economic solutions for problems experienced by African women with regard to the energy sector.

Engendering Energy Policy: A Case Study from Uganda and South Africa, by Marielle Feenstra (2002). Available online at http://www.wougnet.org/Documents/gender_energy.pdf. This masters thesis looks at the process of engendering policy and aims to identify the elements of the framework needed to guide the process to a successful conclusion in the energy sector.

“The Road to Johannesburg and Beyond: Networking for Gender and Energy,” by Gail Karlsson and Sheila Oparaocha, in Energy for Sustainable Development VII, No.3 (September 2003). Available on line at http://www.ieiglobal.org/esd.html. The Energy Decision adopted by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 2001 reflected a gender and energy perspective due to successful lobbying and advocacy activities by ENERGIA members in partnership with other organisations. However, the 2002 Plan of Implementation adopted at the World Summit on Sustainable Development did not similarly reflect the linkages between energy, poverty, and gender roles. The dynamics of international negotiations are complex, and more effective, broad-based advocacy techniques are needed.

“Gender Perspectives on Energy for CSD-9,” by Elizabeth Cecelski, ENERGIA Consultative Group and CSD Women’s Caucus position paper (2001). Available online at http://www.energia.org/pubs/papers/csd9pospaper.pdf. This paper identifies successful examples of approaches to increasing women’s access to sustainable energy in the South, as well as initiatives to increase women’s energy expertise and information in the North, and makes recommendations for empowering women and engendering energy policies and programmes.

4.  Adapted from Joy Clancy and Marielle Feenstra, How to Engender Energy Policy, University of Twente, The Netherlands. Available on line at http://www.generoyambiente.org/ES/articulos_estudios/docs/gender_energy.doc.