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POVERTY, ENERGY & GENDER

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Resource paper by Elizabeth Cecelski

Energy and Poverty Reduction:
The role of women as a target group

Paper presented at the Debate on Sustainable Energy in Danish Development Assistance, Copenhagen: Landstingssalen, Christiansborg, September 5, 2000.

Elizabeth W. Cecelski
Director for Research and Advocacy
ENERGIA
International Network on Women & Sustainable Energy
www.energia.org

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Introduction

First I would like to thank the Forum for Energy and Development (FED) for giving me the opportunity to contribute here today at this important debate, on this key subject of “Energy and Poverty Reduction: The role of women as a target group”. Secondly, I would like to congratulate DANIDA not only for having produced a very fine draft document, but for engaging in a very exciting process of democratic consultation with Danish civil society.

The new energy policy paper that Minister Trojborg has just put before us for debate sets out a renewed commitment by DANIDA to put energy at the service of development, and more particularly, poverty alleviation, in which, from what I have seen of DANIDA assistance in the past, women will play an important role. The challenge before us today is to move beyond these concepts and policy prescriptions, on which we all basically agree, to begin to explore more concretely how to operationalise such a poverty- and user-oriented energy policy.

This is a concern that ENERGIA, the International Network on Women and Sustainable Energy that I represent, shares with DANIDA. ENERGIA News is a quarterly newsletter sent to the ENERGIA network of about 1100 subscribers. Two-thirds of ENERGIA members are in developing countries, and about one-quarter are men. ENERGIA is actively working with regional and national networks in Africa, Asia and Latin America in program areas that our members have identified as important in supporting operationalisation of user-oriented energy policies including gender: the ENERGIA News newsletter, a web-based resource center, advocacy, capacity-building, regionalization of activities, and methodology development and case studies. My presentation today is based partly on ENERGIA’s experience with implementing these program areas, and partly on my own personal consultancy experience in project design and evaluation.