Integration of Gender Issues

Gender aspects of the impact of sustainable energy projects

Gender is relevant to both demand and supply in the energy sector. While the State-led, formal electricity grid offers greater access, more usage flexibility and may therefore be seen as relatively gender neutral, the informal, decentralised and alternative energy supply options call for great care in achieving a gender sensitive match between demand and supply.

Gender impacts of decentralised, renewable energy projects can be addressed at two levels: within the project ‘by doing it better’; and by ‘broadening and deepening’ beneficiary impact through the socio-economic linkages brought about by such projects. The latter involves giving greater attention to women's income generating activities (both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries).

To maximise beneficial impact, energy projects (particularly those that promote renewable, decentralised supplies) need to take gender-differentiated needs into account. Gender is also significant for the efficacy of operation and maintenance (O&M) and for the sustainability of the energy supply - which are both determined by who is involved and trained. Lastly, energy, because of its links with development, necessitates an analysis of gender within a wider market context.

The wider analysis of gender brings out two points. First, to achieve a more gender balanced impact, sustainable energy projects must expand their focus from project specific benefits to broader multiplier effects which arise from productive activities that generate income. This can also bridge the “exclusion gap” between beneficiary and non-beneficiary and allow greater numbers to benefit. Secondly, possibly to a lesser extent, this implies that any saving resulting from the switch to an appropriate renewable energy alternative (e.g. income that used to be spent on other energy sources such as kerosene oil) should be re-oriented toward productive use. This article argues for a wider perspective on impacts, expanding from project level impact to a perspective emphasising multi-disciplinary, sectoral and institutional links in renewable energy projects. Such a perspective will also bring into focus women's involvement in informal sector activities that provide energy services for productive (income generating) end use activities. Such projects can achieve greater positive impacts on gender relationships by moving from a supply focus towards one of stimulating greater productive use of energy (as against only consumptive use such as lighting).

The Energy scenario in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, as in many developing countries, resource constraints include energy poverty. Communities, particularly rural ones, have little access to reliable energy sources except biomass energy for household use. Women are particularly vulnerable to invisibility by energy planners and decision-makers as their needs - both productive and reproductive - are easily overlooked by assumptions of gender neutrality.

At a national level, the Sri Lankan energy scenario is characterised by a high dependence on large hydropower reservoir-based supplies. This has increasingly exposed the national supply system to power shortfalls brought about by drought, annual demand growth rates of approximately 10%, and poor decision making. This “energy crisis”, together with pressures on government expenditure and the fact that priority is given to the demands for industrial power, act as a constraint on any rapid household electrification in the short and medium term. Also, phased State rural electrification schemes - characteristically high cost and low return - have been financed by foreign bank loans. With current household electrification figures at only 42% of all households, the prospects for many rural households (about 65% of the population) of receiving grid electricity are bleak. The energy plan for Sri Lanka should include a path towards an optimal mix of thermal, large hydro and renewable energy resources. Micro-hydro projects, functioning as community level and decentralised power resources, are a significant step towards this scenario. They also offer a decentralised supply option, which is locally manageable, and which can be aimed at identified specific needs. They have a great potential to allow gender into energy services and into wider developmental issues.

Micro-hydro projects in Sri Lanka

Village Micro-Hydro projects have been undertaken by Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) since 1991. These have sought to prove that village level communities are able to successfully harness and use their energy resources to meet their energy needs and to raise their living standards. ITDG has implemented “demonstration” projects, assisted in setting up the services required for this sector through training and monitoring, and worked with government institutions for the incorporation of renewable energy issues in national energy policy.

Projects are usually initiated by individuals, usually male innovators, from communities interested in accessing alternative energy supplies for their village. Benefits are primarily - and often exclusively - lighting, although efforts to develop and test other end uses such as rice mills and battery charging units are currently on-going. Village micro-hydros are community owned and operated, rather than private enterprise initiatives. In the following section I will look at the gender related impacts of such community level projects, and how such impacts could be broadened and deepened. The analysis is based on a sample study, conducted by the author, of five village hydro project sites in which 150 men and women were interviewed, both from households that were connected to micro-hydro power (Chhs) and from those that were not (unconnected households or Uchhs).

Project level impacts of Village Micro-Hydro projects

Project impacts include those related to participation (in project planning and project implementation, in operation and maintenance, and in decision-making) as well as the direct benefits of the use of energy and of energy services.

Community participation in projects ranges from project initiation & planning to project operation. Initiation of a project is often dominated by a dynamic, innovative individual who is often a “natural” leader in the community (and also virtually always male). Wider community participation includes:

• setting up the village level institution required for community management of the project, the Electricity Consumer Society (ECS)
• undertaking the construction of civil works, and
• operation & maintenance

The surveys indicate that participation in such activities is greater by men, and greater by those men and women who are to be connected to the new source (the Chhs), as opposed to the UChhs. Average participation rates of women are lower than those of men, and the disparity in participation between Chhs and UChhs is greater for women than for men (Dhanapala 1995). Reasons for the lower participation by women include the following:

• institutional problems related to conflicts associated with the ECS etc.
• leadership and attitudes that constrain the involvement of women
• women's economic role and activities
• women's subsistence or household activities and responsibilities

However, the single most significant constraint is lack of time (a reason given by 50% of all female respondents but only 17% of male respondents). Other constraints on participation include membership of ECS (listed by more male than female members, but this differs with village characteristics), women's inability to attend meetings which is determined by the meeting place, the time of the meeting (often, inconveniently at night) and the meeting's duration (women wanted short, focused meetings and complained that men often side-tracked meetings with social and political discussions). Constraining influences on participation in operation and maintenance activities include the technical nature of the project. Technology is perceived as something “dangerous” that should be under the charge of men familiar with it. Women and children are often cited as those who need to be “protected” from micro-hydro power, wiring etc.; this can act as a barrier to women taking control of such technology. De-mystifying technology, while emphasising safety, is clearly an area for attention in such energy projects, and should be pursued through training on household end use and maintenance at the household level.

While participation of women in decision making is advocated by project facilitators and staff, it is perhaps more influenced by local leadership, attitudes and perceptions of women's role in village affairs. For example, it was noted that although women act as power house caretakers in two village schemes, they do so on behalf of their sons who are the official (trained) caretakers, and who have devolved their responsibilities to their home-based mothers (Tampoe 1997). Women's participation is also dependent on economic and occupational patterns; women in labour-intensive tea cultivating smallholder villages often cite the lack of time as a constraint on participating in such project activities.

Source: Dhanapala, P. 1998. Beyond project boundaries. Improving gender impacts of Village Micro-Hydro schemes. ENERGIA News Issue 2.3, August 1998. URL: http://www.energia.org/resources/newsletter/en_081998_artkd.html