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ENERGIA News Issue 1, December 1996

News from the Editors

ENERGIA: International Network on Women and Sustainable Energy

Welcome to the first issue of ENERGIA News, the newsletter of ENERGIA, the international network on Women and Sustainable Energy!

Energy is of critical importance to women's development concerns: basic needs, income-earning, health, peace and environment. At the same time, strengthening women's role in energy is essential for promoting environmentally benign, sustainable energy development.

Since no international institution has as its major objective the promotion of the role of women in sustainable energy development, an international network called ENERGIA was established in June 1995 by an informal group of women involved in energy inputs to the Beijing Conference on Women. ENERGIA aims to link individuals and groups concerned with energy, environment and women.

ENERGIA's objective is to engender energy and to empower women, through the promotion of information exchange, training, research, advocacy and action aimed at strengthening the role of women in sustainable energy development.

ENERGIA’s approach (since it is a loose network rather than a formal institution itself) is to seek to identify needed activities and actions through its membership, and then to encourage, and if possible assist, members and their institutions to undertake decentralised initiatives. ENERGIA News is the principal vehicle for this approach. It is produced jointly by Energy, Environment and Development -EED (Wipperfürth, Germany), the Technology and Development Group-TDG at the University of Twente, Enschede (The Netherlands), and TOOLConsult, Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and generously sponsored by The Netherlands Directorate General for Development Co-operation (DGIS), which has a long history of support to gender issues in development.

Why ENERGIA?

For long after the oil crisis brought energy to policy prominence in the 1970s, “women and energy,” would be greeted with a blank stare by energy policy makers, followed perhaps by a nervous laugh : “Women and energy? Oh yes, women have a lot of energy!” On the other side, for feminists and gender experts, energy technologies and policy making were a “black box” too. Over the years, many different fora have sought to explain and persuade energy policy makers of the relevance of women's roles to energy policy - and to explain to women the relevance of energy policies to them.

Since that time, there has been enormous progress in conceptual thinking and empirical knowledge, as well as in project experience on energy and women in some areas-improved stoves and community forestry come immediately to mind. Household energy programmes in particular have built up considerable experience in gender and energy as a result of recognising that energy objectives could not be met without also addressing a number of issues relevant to women users e.g. women's preferences for stoves and fuels, the sexual division of labour, smoke, health and safety, credit, literacy, the need for female extension workers and staff, and women's organisations.

Today, many energy policy makers, practitioners, and international and donor organisations are well aware of the importance of women's participation in rural and household energy projects. Gender analysts and activists are much more knowledgeable about energy and environmental issues. Energy researchers and practitioners - both women and men - are increasingly involved in demand management, decentralised land use, planning, health and safety, measurement of unpaid family labour, and other areas where gender issues are recognised as important.

The thinking and action catalysed by the Rio and Beijing Conferences have stirred up a number of new initiatives and ideas on energy and women. The article by Elizabeth Cecelski below, attempts to place these initiatives in a historical framework: How did we get here, and where do we need to go from here?

Yet it must be admitted that “mainstream” energy policy, practice, research and advocacy still seldom recognise gender issues as legitimate areas of concern relevant to their work. Women's organisations too, have largely subsumed energy policy under general science and technology concerns: energy was hardly discussed at the official conference in Beijing, and there is only one sentence on energy in the final Platform of Action. There seem to be a number of reasons why this is so:

1. Linkages between individuals and organisations involved in gender and energy are weak. Dialogue has been impeded by the absence of a common language and lack of a common forum for communication. Gender training seems to have by-passed most energy programmes, and women continue to be under-represented in mainstream energy programmes and institutions.
2. There is a lack of good, relevant case- studies and examples to provide models of methodologies and implementation, as well as studies of impacts, costs and benefits. This is especially true in areas where women's roles and concerns have not yet been well recognised, such as new and renewable energy technologies, the energy transition, energy pricing and macro-economic policy, health and environment, rural and urban transport, energy in small enterprises, the development of large-scale energy projects, rural electrification and energy decision making.
3. No multi-national energy institution or programme has adopted gender as a key theme for research, policy development and technical assistance in the broad range of energy issues (although gender has been integrated in some household energy programmes such as GTZ's). There is no energy counterpart to the FAO's Forests, Trees and People programme, which has effectively included gender issues in international forestry programming and networking, or to PROWWESS, the global UNDP/World Bank programme for women, water and sanitation. Both programmes have served as effective focal points for research, training and catalytic action on gender in the framework of broader programmes.

The focus is on practice, with a conscientious effort to interpret and learn from this practice

What can we do?

ENERGIA and ENERGIA News are not a solution to all these gaps. But they are a first step towards developing a focal point around which activities on gender and energy could be implemented and catalysed, and information related to gender and energy could be gathered, sorted, analysed, discussed and disseminated. An informal planning meeting in Enschede in June 1996 identified the following priorities for the network (though it was agreed that the list was far from exhaustive), and this first issue of ENERGIA News is already seeking to address some of these needs:

• Publish ENERGIA News as a tool for information exchange and network building. Subscribers would become network members and join the network data base, eventually to be published as a “Who's Who” directory of institutions and individuals working on gender and energy.
• Bring a gender perspective to activities in our own organisations. The article below by Amulya Reddy, for example, suggests assisting women to become energy entrepreneurs as a means of both alleviating rural energy shortages and empowering women.
• Encourage member institutions to undertake development of much-needed resources on gender and energy, such as e.g., annotated bibliography, training modules and courses, case studies, research and planning methodologies. Some training resources developed by UNIFEM, TOOLConsult and the University of Twente are reported on in this issue.
• Build up a capacity to respond rapidly to requests for assistance and training and advisory services on gender and energy. In the Networking Around the World-section, Daphne Wysham illustrates the need for such a capacity.
• Catalyse the formation of regional and professional networks on women and sustainable energy by encouraging workshops on women and energy, in association with major energy programmes and meetings if and when possible. One such initiative in the US is reported on the following pages; we hope to report on recent meetings in Africa and Latin America in the next issue.
• Establish an executive structure for the network and an editorial advisory board for the newsletter, with strengthened Southern representation. Ultimately, the goal is to form an umbrella framework with the potential to provide continuity, support and institutional memory to diverse efforts and lay the groundwork for the eventual establishment of a permanent secretariat on women and sustainable energy in an international or regional institution, preferably in a Southern country.

Who will read ENERGIA News? And what will you find?

Who is our audience? We want to ensure that ENERGIA News reaches a national and international audience of non-governmental organisations, government policy makers, energy planners, project co-ordinators, researchers and field projects concerned with energy, environment and women. This first issue of ENERGIA News is being distributed to a mailing list of those who we feel will be interested in joining the network, as well as to the 150 subscribers who have already responded to an announcement: 55 from Africa, 51 from Asia, 42 from Europe and North America and 5 from Latin America.

Linkages between women in the North and South on sustainable energy are essential for supporting advocacy and action at the international level that affects women everywhere

Each issue will begin with an editorial - a concise overview of the subjects in the newsletter, and how these relate to ENERGIA objectives.

Next, you will find letters to the editor followed by short descriptions of regional or professional networking activities, and a feature on a different international programme concerned with women and energy. Then come short case studies and articles - often summarised from other material that readers send us. The focus is on practice, with a conscientious effort to interpret and learn from this practice: experience of successes and failures, impact studies, commentary on policies and how they affect women. Finally, suggestions for further resources and contacts are given on training, reviews (in future issues), news and events. The goal is not to give full details, but to enable readers to obtain more information from one another - and to offer them a place to post their own information and make contacts.

While the emphasis is on the developing countries, we intend to also report on relevant activities in the North, because we believe that women face many similar concerns in promoting sustainable energy development in the North and South (e.g. urban transport, energy efficiency, nuclear power); furthermore, linkages between women in the North and South on sustainable energy are essential for supporting advocacy and action at the international level that affect women everywhere.

Readers may notice that we use both “women and energy” and “gender and energy”. “Women and energy” is a term more familiar to many readers, but implies an exclusive focus on women, appropriate in some but not all situations. “Gender analysis” rather, is a practical tool for planning, focusing on the activities and resources of both women and men, clarifying where they differ and where they complement each other. We will use both terms as appropriate.

More than most newsletters, ENERGIA News depends on your inputs. Most newsletters are produced by institutional programmes that seek in the first place an outlet to disseminate information on their activities. ENERGIA News, rather, is not part of a larger institutional programme, it is strictly an outlet for information exchange and dissemination by its members: you. We look forward to receiving your letters, articles and news items, as well as other material for us to summarise, and your ideas and suggestions for the ENERGIA network and the newsletter.

The Editorial Team