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ENERGIA News Issue 1, December 1996

Resources

‘Gender-in-Energy’ Training Resource Pack

Tools or awareness?

There is much debate among gender trainers about what is more important: changing people's attitudes towards gender, or teaching them how to include gender systematically in everyday procedures. The majority of gender trainers seem to favour the first approach, but our experience is different. At the Technology and Development Group (TDG), where we have been involved in training for energy planning for nearly 15 years, we have found that the people who have chosen to come to our gender courses are almost all highly motivated when it comes to gender awareness. Their problems are how to convince others in their organisations, and how to turn ideas about gender into concrete reality. That is why we concentrate on ‘tools’.

A modular approach for flexibility

From materials prepared for courses we have produced a “Resource Pack” on training for gender and energy. This is a complete manual of lectures, exercises, case studies, simulation games and readings, which are taken both from the African and the Asian context.

The resource pack is made up of nine modules, with ample materials and exercises. This allows the trainer to select materials that he or she considers useful given a particular group of course participants. The first modules focus on the need for gender considerations in energy planning, then follows a series presenting a variety of tools, and the last modules deal with implementing these procedures within the context of the institutions in which energy planning takes place. Related materials including literature reviews on women and forestry and women and stoves can also be supplied.

Margaret Skutsch, Technology and Development Group, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands; Tel. +31.53.489.3538, Fax +31.53.489.3087, Email M.M.Skutsch@tdg.utwente.nl