EMPOWERING WOMEN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES THROUGH ENERGY FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP

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1 EMPOWERING WOMEN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES THROUGH ENERGY FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP Gail Karlsson, ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy 258 Broadway 5A, New York, NY ABSTRACT Renewable energy technologies offer great possibilities for increased access to electricity and motorized power in rural areas, and can support improved agricultural production, food processing, water pumping, communications and business activities. The possibilities are especially important for women, who play critical roles in supplying energy in developing countries, especially where people still collect firewood and other biomass fuels. Women can gain significantly from modern, renewable energy sources for their traditional household and income-generating activities, as well as new business enterprises, including building, selling, and maintaining energy-related products. However, there are major challenges, including limitations on women s access to information, business skills, technical training, financing, and markets. This paper looks at several energy initiatives working to engage women in productive business activities, and describes some of the measures ENERGIA experts have recommended to promote women s entrepreneurship. 1. INTRODUCTION There has recently been an increased focus on the nearly three billion people living with little or no access to modern energy sources for household and productive uses. The UN General Assembly has designated 2012 as the International Year of Universal Energy Access, and the UN system has undertaken a global campaign on Sustainable Energy for All by 2030, led by the UN Foundation. In launching this campaign, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon emphasized that energy poverty is devastating to human development. 1 Lack of energy particularly affects rural women in developing countries, due to their traditional roles in collecting firewood and other traditional fuels. The amount of time and labor taken up with gathering fuel is an important factor in limiting women s opportunities for education and employment, and contributes to persistently higher poverty levels for women. In addition, women suffer health damage from routinely cooking over open fires inside their homes, burning wood, dung, charcoal and agricultural residues. 2 Unpaid labor takes up most of rural women s time in developing countries. Their business ventures are generally informal, home-based activities, undertaken to help support their families and compatible with their genderbased household and caretaking roles. Many of these activities, like food processing, baking, brewing beer, and making soap and shea butter products, require large amounts of time and heat energy. Modern fuels and equipment would allow women to accomplish their household and productive activities in less time, with greater efficiency, and potentially increase their incomes and economic opportunities. In addition, women can also benefit from new business enterprises related to energy production. These could involve producing clay liners for more efficient 1

2 cookstoves, selling and installing stoves and solar home products, managing village-level power systems, constructing and marketing biogas digesters, or producing biodiesel fuels from locally grown crops. For the most part, government energy initiatives in developing countries prioritize urban and industrial development and transportation. The current low levels of energy use and difficulties in accessing remote areas make rural villages unattractive markets for public or private sector investments in electrification and fuel distribution. Donor institutions have supported many of the efforts to increase access to energy resources in rural areas. Some of them have been small pilot projects that so far have not been successfully scaled up or replicated. Few have focused primarily on using energy technologies as an entry point for enabling women to increase their incomes. Among donor institutions and development agencies, there is a growing interest in approaches to energy access that promote entrepreneurship as a way of establishing financially sustainable enterprises that use, or supply, modern energy options. These approaches could be especially useful for women, particularly if they address the special constraints women face in terms of unequal access to assets, productive resources, information, business training, financing, and market linkages. Most energy project managers lack experience and expertise on approaches to building women s entrepreneurship through energy projects. However, there are a number of organizations that have set examples for engaging women as energy entrepreneurs. In India, the Barefoot College teaches poor, illiterate women how to work in non-traditional occupations. Over the years, the college has trained hundreds of rural women, including a number of women from Africa, as solar engineers, and enabled them to go back to their villages and install solarpowered equipment. Another organization in India is the Self-Employed Women s Association (SEWA), which provides supportive services to poor, self-employed women workers, including savings and credit, health care, child care, insurance, legal aid, capacity building and communication services. SEWA Bank worked with the Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO) to develop a smokeless gas stove, and with a partner organization, Mahila Housing Trust, is training women masons to construct the stoves and set up businesses. In Bangladesh, Grameen Shakti, part of the Grameen family of organizations, trains women to produce, market, repair and maintain solar home systems and other renewable energy technologies. In Uganda, Solar Sister is an innovative social enterprise that uses a woman-to-woman direct sales approach to marketing affordable solar technology. Women become their own bosses and earn independent income as Solar Sister entrepreneurs selling equipment on consignment. Few large energy access initiatives have explicitly focused on women. One exception is the Multifunctional Platform Programme, which was started in Mali with support from UNIDO, UNDP and the Government of Mali, and has since been replicated in other African countries. The platform is composed of a diesel engine mounted on a steel chassis with interchangeable attachments that can be used for a variety of tasks, such as milling, grinding, water pumping, electricity generation, and battery charging. Women are trained to install, maintain and operate the machines, and manage them as business enterprises. They also use the machines to support new income generating activities. Members of the ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Energy have begun to work directly with governments and energy institutions on incorporating strategies for women s economic empowerment into largescale energy programs, through an initiative on Gender Mainstreaming into Energy Access Projects and Markets. This paper briefly reviews a few examples of energy access projects for which ENERGIA has provided guidance on promoting women s economic development, and outlines some of the measures needed to expand women s entrepreneurship through these approaches. 2. ENERGIA PROJECT GUIDANCE 2.1 Senegal Programme to promote rural electrification and sustainable domestic fuel supply 3 Only 25% of rural people in Senegal have access to electricity, and almost half of the primary energy used in the country comes from burning charcoal and biomass. Deforestation due to biomass consumption is a major problem. The Government of Senegal, with support from the German development agency GIZ, is working to increase electricity and alternative fuel supplies to rural areas. The Senegal Programme to promote rural electrification and a sustainable supply of domestic fuel (PERACOD) has provided concessions and subsidies to private companies 2

3 to supply solar home systems and village mini-grids. PERACOD also supports production and distribution of energy-efficient stoves and alternative fuels made from waste materials. These products reduce the need for firewood collection, which is done mainly by women. PERACOD has set specific objectives for promoting gender equality and women s empowerment through improved access to modern energy services and women s participation in energy value chains. They have solicited gender-mainstreaming guidance from ENERGIA network member ENDA-TM as a way to begin to strengthen women s participation in the productive uses of rural electrification, and their development of income-earning activities. With new gender-sensitive indicators, PERACOD collects information about: the number and type of services geared to the needs of women/men, based on their roles and responsibilities (e.g., for women - improved stoves, grain mills, water pumps); levels of employment of men/women supported by PERACOD; income increases related to rural electrification, forest management and improved stoves; and percentages of women and men participating in preparing the Local Development Plans. PERACOD also provides assistance to potters, many of them women, who make clay-based energy-efficient stoves. This includes enhancement of traditional production and marketing systems, as well as facilitating women s access to microfinance, and in some cases climate-related Clean Development Mechanism carbon credits. The program is measuring the economic profitability and viability of women s engagement in producing and marketing improved stoves. 2.2 Sustainable Community Development Services (SCODE) Kenya 4 The Clean Household Energy Dissemination and Enterprise Development (CHEDED) Project is managed and implemented by Sustainable Community Development Services (SCODE) with primary funding from the Ebony Foundation. Its goal is to reduce indoor air pollution and improve the livelihoods of poor households by building markets for clean energy products that can be used for productive activities. In the target areas in Kenya, 85% of households depend on fuel wood, and 95% cook over traditional three stone fires. Earlier stove projects in Kenya, dating back to the 1980s, introduced the charcoal-burning Kenya Ceramic Stove, and the Upesi (Maendeleo) stove. In the 1990s, the Upesi Stove project was able to establish successful rural commercial networks for domestic stove dissemination, training women potters to set up small business enterprises for producing, marketing and installing stoves. This slowed down when the original donor support ended, but members of the East Africa Energy Technology Development Network, including SCODE, have continued to promote and expand stove production and marketing in rural communities. The CHEDED project has adopted a gender mainstreaming approach, in an effort to make a larger contribution to gender equality and the empowerment of women. SCODE had previously taken a gender neutral approach, which ended up with greatly limited women s participation and sharing of benefits, due to constraints on women s activities and decision-making roles. The clay stove liners for the stoves are made commercially by small producers, with both men and women involved in various aspects of mining, molding and finishing work. The finished stoves are sold to retailers and installers, who then sell them to individual end users or groups of end users. With assistance from ENERGIA members, project managers studied the divisions of labor between men and women and made suggestions for improved management and marketing strategies that would provide more equal opportunities for women. Initially, participation of women in project activities, decision-making and leadership was very limited, and no financing mechanisms were available for women who ventured into stoves businesses. By looking at the needs of women and men separately, the venues, duration and timing of activities could be arranged to ensure greater equity. Specific targets for women s participation were adopted in the gender-mainstreaming plan: At least 30% of the leaders of the project s Common Enterprise Groups to be women; Retention rate of trained women clay molders to be increased by 40%; Women s clay mining output to be increased by 10%; and Women included in the training provided on how to produce rocket stove models. Through the CHEDED project, both men and women received entrepreneurship mentoring and training in business development, as well as links to financing 3

4 schemes, as a means of achieving increased levels of income and employment. 2.3 Pakistan National Biogas Programme 5 Most villages in Pakistan rely on dung cakes or firewood as cooking fuels. The economic and social costs of collecting and burning these fuels are substantial, especially in terms of women s time, health and labor. Rural households are rarely connected to the piped gas supply available in urban areas, and it is unlikely that the piped gas supply will reach rural areas in the near future. For agrarian households who already own livestock, biogas is an attractive source of easily accessible renewable energy. The Pakistan Domestic Biogas Programme, which began in 2009, is facilitating the construction of domestic biogas plants for household use. It is managed by the Rural Support Programmes Network, with technical support from SNV (Netherlands Development Organization) and Winrock International. Biogas plants can provide significant benefits for women by creating healthier and more convenient cooking conditions, and reducing their fuel-related work time an average of 157 minutes daily. Biogas also provides lighting, which expands the time available for social, productive and educational opportunities in the evening. However, although the household biogas plants potentially open up more time for women s income-generating activities, due to the patriarchal culture, women have limited roles and few viable business opportunities. The project managers requested guidance from ENERGIA on ways of enabling women to become involved as owners and operators of the biogas plants, thereby helping to build a commercially viable biogas energy sector. ENERGIA organized three workshops on gender, energy and development issues for project staff and promoters, and helped them develop a gender-mainstreaming plan, which called for: inclusion of gender-specific concepts, activities and outcomes in project plans; assignment of a gender and energy expert to the national biogas steering committee; training of women household members on how to use and maintain the biogas plants; and emphasis on enabling women to use time saved in entrepreneurial activities. The biogas user training workshops were initially only for men, but now the strategy has been changed. At least one man and one woman from each user household receive training on how to manage the biogas system. The project has also made efforts to provide training for women users of biogas interested in starting or expanding home-based business activities, such as commercial food preparation. 3. CONCLUSION There are significant possibilities for women in developing countries to benefit from renewable energy technologies, as consumers, as business operators, and as equipment and fuel providers. However, for women to take advantage of these opportunities, they generally have to overcome a variety of social, economic and legal barriers. One substantial hurdle is that throughout the world technology, construction, and engineering jobs are generally viewed as men s work. For women to make a transition from collecting firewood and making dung cakes to building, marketing and installing stoves and biogas digesters, they not only need to acquire new skills, but also may run up against gender discrimination and stereotypes that limit women s roles. Therefore, efforts to engage more women in energy-related enterprises often need to start with discussions among men and women about their different workloads, needs and responsibilities. For government officials and energy institutions, specific gender briefings or training workshops can promote better understanding about the different energy requirements of men and women. Moving away from a posture of gender neutrality towards plans and activities that are more responsive to women s concerns can lead to better results for women, as well as more overall success in providing energy access and supporting national economic development goals. Due to the constraints affecting women in developing countries, they often require special support in pursuing potential business opportunities. Some important services to promote women s entrepreneurship are: Information dissemination through channels that can reach women in rural areas; Technical training that takes into account women s schedules and mobility constraints; Mentoring in business planning, accounting, and marketing skills that is oriented towards women s enterprises; Access to affordable financing and credit facilities; and Subsidies and investment programs targeted towards women s business enterprises. 4

5 ENERGIA s work in providing gender audits of government policies and programs has, at least in some cases, led to the adoption of more gender-sensitive energy activities. This process helps ensure that plans and objectives focus on women as well as men, and provide appropriate investments, policy frameworks, economic incentives, training programs and support services. Some key elements of gender mainstreaming in energy projects are: goals and objectives that recognize and address women s energy needs; women s involvement in design, implementation and evaluation processes; and data collection, targets and indicators that are differentiated by gender. Promotion of women s business activities is critical for expanding energy access and economic development because women earning income can afford more energy services, thereby building demand and stimulating new energy enterprises. Gradually, as women develop new skills and expand their income-producing activities, they can use their earnings to improve conditions for their families and communities, providing better food, educational opportunities and health care. 6. REFERENCES (1) Ban Ki-moon, The New York Times, Powering Sustainable Energy for All, January 11, 2012 (2) ENERGIA. Where Energy is Women s Business: National and Regional Reports from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific, 2007 (3) Gueye, Y. and M. Ehemba, Integration du Genre dans les Projets d-energie, ENDA, PERACOD, 2011 (4) SCODE, Gender Mainstreaming in SCODE ICS Project, 2011 (5) Pakistan Domestic Biogas Programme, Gender Mainstreaming in the Pakistan Domestic Biogas Programme,