EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- This study is part of a number of case studies to ‘identify the linkages between access to energy/electricity, poverty alleviation and gender equity’ in general, and in this report, specifically in China . More general conclusions are drawn about ‘the lessons learned which may improve the impact of projects of the World Bank and ASTAE on poverty alleviation and gender equity in China and possibly in other countries’
- The report takes as its starting point the empirical fact that women and children not only form the majority of the poor people in most communities in developing countries but they are universally the major users and suppliers of energy resources in marginalised communities. Women (together with their children) collect much of the biomass used by households, and women manage most of the energy used by poor households.
- In the first part of the report framework is developed through which poverty, gender and energy can be viewed. In the second part, this framework is used to select and record empirical evidence on the nature of these linkages in the Peoples’ Republic of China. The field research was conceived as a series of case studies, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, in selected poor rural counties in two Chinese Provinces, Gansu and Hubei.
- China is different (paragraphs 1.6 and following).
- It has experienced massive economic growth over the last two decades, associated in part with an astonishing growth of “Township and Village Enterprises”
- There has been a strong commitment to poverty reduction (in the traditional sense of reducing the number below the poverty line) with the result that there are institutions and ‘delivery mechanisms’ not available in many other developing countries.
- Some 96% of villages and 94% of households are now said to be served by large or small grid systems, leading to a strong sense of “exclusion” for people who do not have access.
- Great size – the small proportion of people who still rely on batteries or small diesel generators still represents some 77 million people in 30,000 villages
- It is highly decentralised. Provincial and county governments are largely self-financing and have a great deal of autonomy. Central government often leads by example and persuasion - not by issuing detailed policy directives.
- While the study areas in Gansu and Hubei provide important insights into the relationship between energy, gender and poverty, both areas had suffered recently from drought
- A number of analytical frameworks are considered for examining the links between energy, poverty and gender. Two of the most actively developed frameworks, the Sustainable Livelihoods approach and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, exhibit considerable convergence. However both are under development, and do not yet deal with energy in an entirely satisfactory way.
- The report builds on these approaches and contributes insights that are specific to energy systems and recent changes in the institutional arrangements characterizing the energy sectors of developing countries.
- The insights gained from this exercise are related mainly to a perspective rather than some finite set of energy-poverty-gender linkages. There is unlikely to be a set of rules or fixed input-output relationships that provide a ‘magic bullet’ to ‘solve’ energy poverty. There is a new situation in which poverty reduction is seen as the main objective of development, while the agencies no longer consider huge ‘energy sector loans’ as part of their arsenal. The key to the new situation is an awareness among practitioners that energy interventions will have important role to play in all attempts to reduce poverty and improve the well being of both women and men.
- The analytical framework, and the associated empirical work, suggest
- The sustainable livelihood approach worked well in generating a rich set of insights about the energy situation in Western China, and its gender dimension.
- Multiple interactions and synergies between energy inputs and the other complementary inputs associated with poverty reduction. Energy provides a necessary but not sufficient (enabling) input, probably in the same way as other infrastructural services such as water supplies, education and health.
- That there two important perspectives: what impact can energy interventions have on poverty and gender; and how can other poverty reduction interventions be improved by a more energy- sensitive approach?
- A component of the newer, multi-dimensional view of poverty, will be the sense of exclusion of those people who do not have access to electric lighting and communications.
- The study confirms the methodological difficulties of establishing rigorous quantitative relationship between energy inputs and poverty/gender outputs at the project level. This is particularly so in the absence of time series data and the large volumes of data necessary for a general equilibrium approach. However there would appear to be clear and long standing ‘associations’ between energy the human well-being at the macro level of whole countries.
- The report confirms that
- the impact on poverty and gender relations of energy interventions are strongly affected by “complementary inputs” such that the “bundling” of a number of interventions, together with improved energy services appears to have more than proportionate effect.
- The choice of energy end-use technology plays a large part in determining, the nature, scale and distribution (between women and men) of energy interventions.
- The pattern of impacts of energy interventions are often complex, involving both direct and indirect linkages to the reduction of poverty of women and men.
- The vicious circle of energy poverty will often be broken only by combining improved energy services with end uses that generate cash income (3.10 and following)
- Among the specifically gender related issues, the report notes:
- The considerable importance of disaggregated data (on needs, uses, technologies etc) because the different and unequal roles in the division of labour mean that women and men have different needs and priorities, and these are reflected in their different energy needs.
- The ‘productive’ and ‘reproductive’ aspects of women’s lives are matched by energy for production and energy of consumption(2.42)
- Given the importance in energy end-use in determining impact, women’s energy needs will not be met until they have a ‘Voice’ in determining options and priorities
- Similarly in order to improve women’s access to the energy services they need, programmes will need to address their unequal access to the necessary ‘livelihood assets’, including credit, extension and training (2.57)
- The findings in China.
- Women are marginalized in the rural energy economy (6.39 ).
- The great importance of electric lighting for promoting social inclusion, well being and social capital in China. For example, the marriage-ability of rural men is significantly affected by lack of electricity (6.6). A general view was that the major impact of electricity on livelihoods arose from its capacity to reduce general workloads and lengthen the working day, thereby increasing the possibilities for diversification of activities. Electricity was used for smaller domestic equipment and viewed mainly as a consumption item. Its importance lay in its less tangible benefits, allowing women to do tasks in the evening, allowing children to do their homework and read and providing access to television.
- There were direct impacts of energy services on production: there was a clear correlation between powered production and transport equipment and living standards (6.56). Diesel was the primary fuel associated with production activities(6.17).
- Out migration was a major livelihood strategy. Improvements in women’s access to improved energy services enabled men to migrate (6.13).
- Richer (salaried) people obtain and then hire our end use devices at what appeared to be relatively low prices (6.57).
- Attempts to introduce ad-hoc energy services, such as Photovoltaic home systems had failed (6.31). This was partly a function of remoteness, but more fundamentally because the delivery of spare parts and maintenance was not embedded in a proper system of ‘intermediation’.
- Energy services had numerous indirect impacts on poverty and gender. Perhaps the most important was the impact on vulnerability of energy for irrigation pumping. When the power was there vulnerability was reduced, but in some sense the unreliability of the energy supply to the irrigation system increased people’s vulnerability(6.19, 6.34).
- While only a small proportion of Chinese people are without access to modern energy services, the absolute numbers are large and are concentrated in the more remote areas. Remoteness increases the costs of all energy supply options, but not all options equally. Clearly those with low fuel transport costs are likely to be favoured (ie micro hydro, wind, biogas, PV etc). However the example of PV systems suggests that the distance related costs of installation maintenance and spare parts can be severe. Lack of integration with the external market, due to remoteness and lack of transport infrastructure, severely limits the range of income generating options (and technology supply options) necessary to break the cycle of energy poverty.
- The Lessons learned for the World Bank and the ASTAE programme are listed in Chapter 7.
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