In developing countries, women still use traditional means for cooking. It’s time they adopt modern methods that employ clean energy. This will address environmental concerns and bring about much-needed gender equality
With more than 95 per cent of the world’s population without access to electricity and clean cooking facilities, the world faces a significant energy divide between the rich and the poor countries. The Sub-Saharan African region and developing countries of Asia are the most affected.
Reports by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Development Programme say that nearly 80 per cent of the available energy, especially in rural areas, is used for lighting and television purpose. The main energy source for cooking is still fires and traditional use of biomass, and this, where energy divide impacts women the most, as they experience energy poverty differently and more severely than men.
In many developing countries, women are still associated with household and community energy provisions. Without access to modern and clean energy, women spend their productive time performing basic subsistence chores, which include time-consuming and physically draining tasks of collecting biomass fuel. This constrains them from accessing a decent wage employment, educational opportunity and livelihood opportunities, besides limiting their options for social and political interaction outside the household.
At the same time, cooking with biomass adversely impacts their health and their children’s health. According to WHO, of an estimated two million annual deaths attributed to indoor air pollution, generated by fuels such as coal, wood, charcoal and dung, 85 per cent of women and children die from cancer, acute respiratory infections and lung diseases.
Access to modern, sustainable energy can significantly empower the women by reducing their time and labour burdens. This will inturn improve their health and provide them with opportunities for enterprise and capacity building. Clean energy is rapidly emerging as an effective tool that can not only address environmental concerns, but also bring about the much-needed gender equality.
Ensuring gender equality can lead to sustainable development, especially in emerging economies. In September, Governments at the United Nations General Assembly adopted 17 sustainable development goals, of which clean energy and gender equality were prominent. Pursuing these two goals in a coordinated manner can help tackle gender inequality that exists in energy access.
The Sustainable Energy For All initiative, led by the United Nations, is yet another move that is helping countries gain access to clean, sustainable and healthy energy for all by 2030.
SE4All also addresses gender equality in clean energy by setting targets intended to address women’s access to clean energy, by specifically reducing the number of premature deaths from indoor air pollution and providing modern energy services to healthcare service providers.
Women in semi-urban areas and rural areas in India have suffered for long, on account of unavailability of clean and healthy energy alternatives to polluting biomass fuels. This has proved detrimental to the overall health of the family and has impacted livelihoods adversely.
India must combine efforts for clean energy generation with women empowerment as this will not only help improve the health of the family but will also improve the economic condition, besides providing opportunities for the girls to pursue education.
Women empowerment in clean energy access and innovation can deliver outstanding results. For instance, the African initiative — Solar Sister — is tackling energy poverty and women’s empowerment simultaneously by providing a social enterprise opportunity for women entrepreneurs. Through Solar Sister, over 1,200 women entrepreneurs have reached 2,00,000 people.
Women participation in energy affairs is a prerequisite for women empowerment. Today, the global energy industry comprises of a dismal six per cent women’s presence in non-technical positions whereas 61 percent of US energy companies have no female representation on their board of directors at all.
This bleak scenario needs to change in order to ensure clean energy access and planning that has women as decision makers. India too must realise that if women continue to be left out in clean energy initiatives, the existing gender inequalities will persist or could even deepen.
Clean energy initiatives that are driven by women empowerment are the enabling factors for economic development and poverty reduction. The widespread usage of clean energy products in countries that are high in pollution and low in access to electricity can result in profits that go far beyond the monetary aspect and extend to addressing pressing issues such as gender inequality.
At a time when air pollution is at its peak, access to clean energy is assuming the form of a basic human right, more so for women. In this context, gender equality, should be viewed as a climate-smart innovation. If women were to play an equal and decisive role in adoption of clean energy, it can help combat climate change while improving equitable energy access.