Gender and Energy Issues in the Global South: Implications for the Post-Millennium Development Goals Agenda after 2015

Citation:

Mininni, Giulia M. 2015. “Gender and Energy Issues in the Global South: Implications for the Post-Millennium Development Goals Agenda after 2015.” The Luminary (5): 43–62.

Author: Giulia M. Mininni

Abstract:

Due to the conditions of gender inequality that limit women’s access to and control over environmental resources in remote rural areas, unfavourable environmental conditions tend to have more negative effects on women than on men. The same considerations can be applied to the lack of access to energy services, especially given women’s traditional roles and responsibilities as housekeepers. This happens more consistently in areas where people are directly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods. This paper will explore how access to energy services is essential to improving the living conditions of women in off-grid rural areas of the global south, and, in the end, to contribute to global poverty reduction. It will highlight how for a long time energy projects have been treated as “gender neutral”, founded on the belief that energy issues and solutions were the same for men and women. However, the reality is different in most countries in the global south. The paper will outline how gender sensitive policies and programmes are necessary to address women’s specific needs. Finally, the paper will focus on the post- Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agenda and underline how the new framework has the potential to offer opportunities to integrate energy access as a priority goal. Small-scale decentralised energy options could also ensure better participation at local level of under-represented groups such as women and push for better gender equality.

Topics: Development, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, Infrastructure, Energy, Livelihoods

Year: 2015