Gender Mainstreaming in Mini-grids - Entry Points
Introduction
Gender mainstreaming should be done in all phases of the mini-grid development:Consultations and Planning, Construction, Operation and maintenance and End use of electricity. The different approaches for involving women are discussed below.
Consultation and Planning
Involving women in community consultation for mini-grid planning taps into their indigenous knowledge about the natural resources and also their potential electricity demand for mini-grid sizing. Some of the approaches for integrating women in consultation and planning are:
Gender Specific Demand Assessment
During the site selection, along with the site data and the demand assessment, gender specific demand assessment should be carried out to understand the needs of the target community. This will help the minigrid planners to size their system accordingly and also meet the energy demand of the target community. Gender based assessment also helps to determine if and how the planned mini-grid will impact the different gender needs and roles of the women. Some of the questions that can be asked during the gender assessment are (Moser, 1993):
- What is the household composition? Size of the household, structure of the household (nuclear or joint families), sex composition and division of labor by age and sex.
- What is the source of household income? Who has control over household income and how is the decision-making power distributed?
- What is the composition of the women in the target community? What are the productive, reproductive and community roles of women?
- What are the practical and strategic needs of women?
- Are there any national or policies that focus on energy and gender? What kind of subsidies or grants are there for women led projects?
