Benin

Citation:

Burney, Jennifer, Halimatou Alaofè, Rosamond Naylor, and Douglas Taren. 2017. “Impact of a Rural Solar Electrification Project on the Level and Structure of Women's Empowerment.” Environmental Research Letters 12 (9). doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7f38.

Authors: Jennifer Burney, Halimatou Alaofè, Rosamond Naylor, Douglas Taren

Abstract:

Although development organizations agree that reliable access to energy and energy services—one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals—is likely to have profound and perhaps disproportionate impacts on women, few studies have directly empirically estimated the impact of energy access on women's empowerment. This is a result of both a relative dearth of energy access evaluations in general and a lack of clarity on how to quantify gender impacts of development projects. Here we present an evaluation of the impacts of the Solar Market Garden—a distributed photovoltaic irrigation project—on the level and structure of women's empowerment in Benin, West Africa. We use a quasi-experimental design (matched-pair villages) to estimate changes in empowerment for project beneficiaries after one year of Solar Market Garden production relative to non-beneficiaries in both treatment and comparison villages (n = 771). To create an empowerment metric, we constructed a set of general questions based on existing theories of empowerment, and then used latent variable analysis to understand the underlying structure of empowerment locally. We repeated this analysis at follow-up to understand whether the structure of empowerment had changed over time, and then measured changes in both the levels and likelihood of empowerment over time. We show that the Solar Market Garden significantly positively impacted women's empowerment, particularly through the domain of economic independence. In addition to providing rigorous evidence for the impact of a rural renewable energy project on women's empowerment, our work lays out a methodology that can be used in the future to benchmark the gender impacts of energy projects.

Topics: Development, Economies, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Benin

Year: 2017

Citation:

Aduloju, Ayodeji Anthony. 2017. "ECOWAS and Free Movement of Persons: African Women as Cross-Border Victims." Journal of International Women's Studies 18 (4): 89-105.

Author: Ayodeji Anthony Aduloju

Abstract:

Existing literature has investigated the challenges of interstate border dispute, border conflict and their security and developmental implications for the West African sub-region. ECOWAS Free Movement Protocol of Persons was instituted to enhance economic development of West Africa’s citizens. However, studies have shown that the protocol has relatively aided transborder trafficking in persons, drugs, Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). However, vulnerability of trans-border women traders in the sub-region have received little attention. This study utilized both primary and secondary sources of data gathering in order to interrogate the provisions of ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons vis-à-vis its operationalization and incapacity to increase women’s economic opportunity and empowerment in West Africa. Through field survey, twenty (20) interviews were conducted at the Nigeria-Benin border. The interviews targeted 14 purposively selected women traders at the border, two officials each of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigerian Customs Service and the Nigeria Police Force. Moreover, observation method was employed to substantiate the interviews conducted. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive analysis. Consequently, this study discovered that women constituted more of trans-border traders on Nigeria-Benin border, and precisely in West Africa. In addition, they are vulnerable to extortion, intimidation and sexual harassment by border officials, which has impinged on their rights contained in the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons. The study showed that the protocol does not fully protect women (mostly the ones with low economic characteristics who constitute larger population of women at the border) and thereby having implications for their livelihood and survival. The study then concluded that while the problem faced by women on the Nigeria-Benin border persists, it has a huge impact on the credibility of ECOWAS to properly integrate the sub-region for development and for the benefit of its significant population of women.

Keywords: ECOWAS Free Movement Protocol, gender, Trans-Border Women Traders, West Africa, sub-regional integration

Topics: Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Trafficking, Arms Trafficking, Drug Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Weapons /Arms Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Benin, Nigeria

Year: 2017

Citation:

Daley, Elizabeth. 2010. Gendered Impacts of Commercial Pressures on Land. Rome: International Land Coalition.

Author: Elizabeth Daley

Abstract:

This paper contains a careful and focused analysis of the gendered impacts of commercial pressures on land (CPL), and especially their impacts on women. It is based on a review of the literature on CPL to date and an analysis from a gender perspective of International Land Coalition country case studies carried out in India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda and Benin. Arguing that women are both likely to be affected differently from men by large-scale land deals and disproportionately more likely to be negatively affected than men because they are generally vulnerable as a group, the paper provides recommendations as to how tools and procedures envisaged by proposed regulatory frameworks must be locally appropriate and must specifically address all four aspects of women’s vulnerability with respect to CPL: productive resources, participation in decision-making, relative income poverty and physical vulnerability. (International Land Coalition)

Topics: Extractive Industries, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Grabbing, Multi-National Corporations, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Benin, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Zambia

Year: 2010