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Question 1:
What does energy poverty mean for women and girls in Africa, for their welfare, income-generation, and empowerment?
Reliance on inefficient and polluting cookstoves and fuels disproportionately impacts women and girls because cooking and securing sufficient household energy remains a woman’s responsibility in most countries. In order to cook for their families and secure the energy needs of their households, women and girls must work long, arduous hours, which in many cases puts their health and safety at risk. Without access to cleaner cooking solutions, women are exposed to deadly smoke that kills over 4 million people every year (WHO, 2016), and are forced to walk up to 5 hours per day to search for fuel and carry heavy loads of firewood for miles (Dutta, 2005; United Nations, 2010). Not only is fuel collection extremely time consuming and laborious, but in conflict settings particularly, women face an increased vulnerability to physical and sexual violence when leaving the safety of their communities or refugee camps to find fuelwood (Patrick, 2007; WRC, 2011).
The time spent collecting fuel and cooking food can take hours contributing significantly to the amount of unpaid work and the time poverty that women face. Globally, women take on three times as much unpaid care work generally as men. On average, 61% is routine housework such as cooking, cleaning, collecting water and fuel, home maintenance and gardening (McKinsey, 2016) -- with women spending four times as much time cooking compared to men (equating to 83 minutes per day) (OECD, 2011). This number varies widely depending on country and urban versus rural locations. In South Asia, for example, women spend 374 hours collecting fuel per year (or ~61 minutes per day), and an additional 4 hours cooking daily on traditional stoves (Practical Action, 2014).
Ultimately, greater use of clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels could lead to significant reductions in time spent collecting fuel and cooking. Recent research (Brooks et al, 2016) in North India (rural) reveals that liquified petroleum gas (LPG) stoves result in 105 fewer minutes per day collecting biomass fuels, which equates to an 80% reduction in time spent on fuel collection. The same study found that cooking with LPG is estimated to reduce cooking time by 2.6 hours per day (80%).
A reduction of time spent cooking and collecting fuel can allow women to complete other responsibilities and pursue income-generating opportunities, education, and rest – as they choose.
On a final and more broad note, clean cooking can directly deliver gains across ten of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contribute to an enabling environment for achieving the entire Agenda 2030. The Alliance and partners successfully advocated for the inclusion robust indicators on ambient and household air pollution, unpaid work, and cooking energy into the measurement framework of the SDGs.
For more information on how energy poverty impacts women and girls, as well as the intersection of clean cooking with the SDGs, see the following:
• SDG landing page on the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves website
• SDG Factsheet
• Women Deliver Factsheet
• Post by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves on the Gates Annual letter discussing time poverty and energy
• Sarah’s story video illustrating what a clean cookstove means for a woman in Kenya
Question 1:
Submitted by Genevieve Macfa... on Sun, 23/10/2016 - 13:57 Permalink
Question 1:
What does energy poverty mean for women and girls in Africa, for their welfare, income-generation, and empowerment?
Reliance on inefficient and polluting cookstoves and fuels disproportionately impacts women and girls because cooking and securing sufficient household energy remains a woman’s responsibility in most countries. In order to cook for their families and secure the energy needs of their households, women and girls must work long, arduous hours, which in many cases puts their health and safety at risk. Without access to cleaner cooking solutions, women are exposed to deadly smoke that kills over 4 million people every year (WHO, 2016), and are forced to walk up to 5 hours per day to search for fuel and carry heavy loads of firewood for miles (Dutta, 2005; United Nations, 2010). Not only is fuel collection extremely time consuming and laborious, but in conflict settings particularly, women face an increased vulnerability to physical and sexual violence when leaving the safety of their communities or refugee camps to find fuelwood (Patrick, 2007; WRC, 2011).
The time spent collecting fuel and cooking food can take hours contributing significantly to the amount of unpaid work and the time poverty that women face. Globally, women take on three times as much unpaid care work generally as men. On average, 61% is routine housework such as cooking, cleaning, collecting water and fuel, home maintenance and gardening (McKinsey, 2016) -- with women spending four times as much time cooking compared to men (equating to 83 minutes per day) (OECD, 2011). This number varies widely depending on country and urban versus rural locations. In South Asia, for example, women spend 374 hours collecting fuel per year (or ~61 minutes per day), and an additional 4 hours cooking daily on traditional stoves (Practical Action, 2014).
Ultimately, greater use of clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels could lead to significant reductions in time spent collecting fuel and cooking. Recent research (Brooks et al, 2016) in North India (rural) reveals that liquified petroleum gas (LPG) stoves result in 105 fewer minutes per day collecting biomass fuels, which equates to an 80% reduction in time spent on fuel collection. The same study found that cooking with LPG is estimated to reduce cooking time by 2.6 hours per day (80%).
A reduction of time spent cooking and collecting fuel can allow women to complete other responsibilities and pursue income-generating opportunities, education, and rest – as they choose.
On a final and more broad note, clean cooking can directly deliver gains across ten of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contribute to an enabling environment for achieving the entire Agenda 2030. The Alliance and partners successfully advocated for the inclusion robust indicators on ambient and household air pollution, unpaid work, and cooking energy into the measurement framework of the SDGs.
For more information on how energy poverty impacts women and girls, as well as the intersection of clean cooking with the SDGs, see the following:
• SDG landing page on the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves website
• SDG Factsheet
• Women Deliver Factsheet
• Post by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves on the Gates Annual letter discussing time poverty and energy
• Sarah’s story video illustrating what a clean cookstove means for a woman in Kenya