- Reflections and recommendations on national energy policy formulation, and energy policies in southern Africa
- Power sector reforms in brief
- Implications of these reforms for southern Africa’s poor
- Suggestions for the way forward
2. National energy policies and gender
- Energy policy formulation processes in the last few years have focused on a very broad and important range of issues.
- Gender, environment,health and safety issues are noted to be concerning but have received relatively little attention by government energy policy drafting teams, consultants and stakeholders.
- Energy policies specifically addressing gender issues have tended to be ‘add-ons’, rather than fully integrated into energy policy frameworks
- Energy policies that address poverty are more common – indeed, policies promoting widened energy access and tariffs are numerous
3. National energy policies and gender
- Gender-energy policies have focussed on household fuels and technologies (for example efficient stoves) and have not addressed a wider range of pertinent issues (time needs, capacity building, education, etc.)
- Policies are now tending to focus on income- generating activities and rural energy issues and have not differentiated between the different needs of urban and rural women.
- Gender-energy policies are calling for wider participation by women, but these policies do not generally enable this, and therefore ultimately do not empower southern African women.
- Account of gender issues in (follow-through) sub-sectoral action planning has been mixed
- Record of implementation of these national energy policies has also been mixed
- Some government departments are now working with civic, research and donor organisations to pilot projects and in some cases achieve full-scale implementation
- Projects have been unsustainable primarily because of limited finances, little ownership and participation starting in the design stages, relocation of the champion, and inappropriate planning.
4. Gender (& energy) policy/initiatives in southern Africa
- Botswana: Programme to strengthen institutional arrangements and mechanisms related to the implementation of the National Gender Programme, capacity building within Women’s Affairs Department, strengthening networking in civil society organisations and assistance with policy formulation for mainstreaming gender equality.
- Namibia: Ensuring that energy projects impact positively on rural women (through appropriate participation and education on interventions).
- South Africa: Redressing inverse skills profile, policies on household environment and safety, access
- Lesotho: Ensuring that energy projects take account of women (and defining projects for income generation by women, in collaboration with civil society groups).
- Mozambique: Gender element features in national development objectives. Women’s emancipation to be achieved though elevation of their participation in all societal activities.
5. And now what?
- Extending safe energy services for the poor.
- Mainstreaming gender issues in energy policy frameworks, and creating a ‘full package’ for women (participation, consultation, educating and training, etc.).
- Understanding financing needs.
- Maintaining focus on income-generating activities
- Integrating financing requirements and avoiding high reliance on unsustainable external finances
- Showcasing success stories and building on experience on a larger scale.
- Improving gender analysis and collecting accurate data.
- Building strong and sustainable partnerships with civil society organisations, and others.
- Boosting inter-ministerial/inter-governmental co-operation.
- Ensuring that “women and energy” issues appear more regularly on the regional energy agenda
- Encouraging more women to work in the energy sector
6. Power sector reforms
- Structural changes
-> Changes in ownership
-> Regulatory amendments
- Each of these changes will have profound effect on poor people (and women)!
Note that electricity access does not solve women’s energy needs
7. Power sector reforms
- Commercialisation
- Behavioural change entailing the relinquishment of state control, and a focus on profitability and improved performance.
- Corporatisation
- Formal and legal move from direct govt. control to a legal corporation with separate management.
- Introduction of competition
- Entails unbundling activities (horizontal and vertical dis-aggregation);
- Introduced at wholesale and then retail levels.
8. Structural changes
9. Power sector reforms
- New regulation
- To support these new contexts
- Privatisation
- Involves a move from public to private ownership
- Commonly prepared for through commercialisation and corporatisation activities.
10. Changes in industry ownership
11. Implications of reform on the poor
- Effects on prices:
- Short term impacts have tended to entail a price increase (because of new capacity investments) (-)
- In the long term, it is likely that prices will drop if competition is introduced into the industry (+)
- Subsidy reform:
- As the electricity industry moves towards cost-reflective tariffs, subsidy reform is inevitable. The impact that this reform has on poor people depends on government stance in this regard. Many countries maintain energy subsidies for the poor. (-/+)
- Effects on access programmes:
- Electrification programmes may be placed on the backburner until mainstream issues are agreed upon (-)
- Private companies are less inclined to invest in electrification programmes because they are expensive (-)
- Private companies can offer new sources of funds for grid and off-grid electrification (+)
- There is often a bias towards grid-electrification and away from off-grid electrification (-)
12. Conclusions
- Power sector reforms must take access issues into account (right from the start and not as an afterthought)
- Competition and good regulation must precede privatisation initiatives
- A study on the impact of reforms should be conducted before mistakes are made
- Regulation is key to the ongoing provision of public benefits (energy efficiency, renewable energy, access) which contribute to poverty upliftment
|
