Appropriate gender-analysis tools for unpacking the gender-energy-poverty nexus

Overview

In rural and low-income urban households, energy is ‘women’s business’: women are responsible for providing energy, and use it for domestic chores and productive activities. However, the poor quality fuels many women use contribute to their time poverty, ill health, and level of drudgery. Despite these negative impacts, energy policy remains gender-blind. This can be attributed to the invisibility of women’s needs to energy planners, stemming from a lack of appropriate gender-analysis tools to meet the particular data requirements of the energy sector. This article analyses why standard gender tools do not provide appropriate gender-disaggregated energy data, and describes a set of tools that have been developed for that purpose. The paper concludes with an evaluation of recent experiences testing the tools in Pakistan, India, and Nepal.

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