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Response to question 1: What are the challenges to women’s engagement in the production and distribution of energy?
Although women are disproportionately impacted by inefficient cooking practices, they play a crucial role in the widespread adoption and use of clean cooking solutions. As consumers and users, women not only drive demand, they ultimately decide if products are fully adopted. As entrepreneurs and market actors, women can catalyze markets and scale adoption by generating demand, reaching new and different consumer segments, and scaling distribution. Increasing women’s participation in the cookstove value chain can lead to the creation of sustainable business models that leverage the capacity of local skills and knowledge.
In order to successfully engage women and address gender issues, several barriers must be addressed. The following constraints are specifically applicable to women entrepreneurs:
● Exclusion because of gender discrimination;
● Limited education and/or technical and business knowledge;
● Undervalued and undercompensated labor;
● Lack of control over assets and resources;
● Limited free time because of their triple role in society (reproductive, productive, and community responsibilities); and
● Low representation in policy and decision-making.
By conducting gender analysis, organizations can better understand the gender roles and dynamics in the communities they serve. This information will help enterprises understand the barriers that women entrepreneurs they are seeking to recruit and retain are facing, allowing them to develop targeted strategies to overcome them. The Alliance’s resource guide on Scaling Adoption of Clean Cooking Solutions through Women’s Empowerment further identifies the common constraints that women entrepreneurs face including lack of access to financing, education, training, and market data, as well as mobility restrictions and discriminatory cultural and gender norms.
In addition, fostering agency-based empowerment and leadership can be critical to more effectively engaging women as micro and small entrepreneurs. Despite their advantageous position to market clean cooking technologies, women entrepreneurs face specific challenges from both their extrinsic social and cultural environment, as well as intrinsic factors. While extrinsic factors directly influence an individual’s capacity to function in their environment, multiple intrinsic factors – such as self-efficacy, agency, motivation, and drive – contribute substantially to women’s competitiveness, growth, and capacity to succeed as entrepreneurs.
Results from a recent Johns Hopkins University study (funded by the Alliance) in Kenya demonstrated that the use of agency-based empowerment training significantly improved entrepreneurial capacity to sell cookstoves: women are nearly 3 times as likely to sell more products as compared with men, and those individuals who underwent the empowerment training were 2.7 times more likely to be top sellers compared to those who participated in a standard entrepreneurial training. Qualitative feedback reports indicated that entrepreneurs could benefit from additional training to build both business and intrinsic leadership skills. In response to this study, other studies examining agency-based empowerment trainings, and Alliance partner interest, the Alliance commissioned and released the Empowered Entrepreneur Training Handbook with training material on business, empowerment and leadership (specific to women entrepreneurs in the household energy sector).
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Response to Question 2: How can we increase the evidence base on the impact of women’s successful engagement in these sub-sectors?
While efforts have focused on developing measurement methodologies to capture the environmental and health impacts of clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels, less is known about the social impacts that result from the clean cooking sector - particularly related to women’s engagement in the clean cooking supply chain. Amid increasing public and private investment in the clean cooking sector, understanding the sector’s social impact has become more important than ever. Due to this gap and our interest in social impacts – particularly in how clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels contribute to the empowerment of women along the supply chain – the Alliance and ICRW have worked together to create a global social impact measurement system: “Measuring Social Impact in the Clean and Efficient Cooking Sector: A How-To Guide.”
The social impact measurement system was developed through an extensive process, including a review of existing women’s empowerment and social impact methodologies and frameworks (e.g., W+ Standard, Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), etc.); an expert Steering Committee convened to solicit insights; and field testing with partners in India, Kenya, and Uganda.
This systematic social impact measurement system can ensure that all actors are in alignment as to how to define and measure the social impacts associated with clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels. The measurement system will increase the capacity of diverse enterprises, implementers, NGOs, investors, donors, and other global stakeholders to understand, quantify, and assess the social and economic impacts of clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels. It will also allow global actors, such as the Alliance, to aggregate data in order to quantify the extent to which clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuel initiatives generate social impacts across contexts and settings.
The social impact measurement system includes three surveys to measure social impacts:
1. The Organizational Social Impact Survey: this is conducted annually within organizations (which may include enterprises and other implementers) to provide insights into the social impacts that clean and/or efficient cookstove/fuel organizations can have through the types of opportunities they provide to their employees and the users of their products.
2. The Employee/Entrepreneur Social Impact Survey: this is conducted with the employees and/or entrepreneurs of clean and/or efficient cookstove/fuel organizations to capture changes that occur in the lives of employees/entrepreneurs as a result of their employment/affiliation with these organizations.
3. The User Social Impact Survey: this is conducted among clean and/or efficient cookstove and fuel end-users to measure changes at the individual and household levels as a result of using the cookstoves/fuels.
The surveys are accompanied with a Social Impact How-To document to guide organizations in implementing and using the surveys, as well as the results.
We urge organizations in the household energy sector to download and use the social impact measurement system in order to capture and share evidence.
Response to question 1: What
Submitted by Radha Muthiah on Mon, 07/11/2016 - 07:45 Permalink
Response to question 1: What are the challenges to women’s engagement in the production and distribution of energy?
Although women are disproportionately impacted by inefficient cooking practices, they play a crucial role in the widespread adoption and use of clean cooking solutions. As consumers and users, women not only drive demand, they ultimately decide if products are fully adopted. As entrepreneurs and market actors, women can catalyze markets and scale adoption by generating demand, reaching new and different consumer segments, and scaling distribution. Increasing women’s participation in the cookstove value chain can lead to the creation of sustainable business models that leverage the capacity of local skills and knowledge.
In order to successfully engage women and address gender issues, several barriers must be addressed. The following constraints are specifically applicable to women entrepreneurs:
● Exclusion because of gender discrimination;
● Limited education and/or technical and business knowledge;
● Undervalued and undercompensated labor;
● Lack of control over assets and resources;
● Limited free time because of their triple role in society (reproductive, productive, and community responsibilities); and
● Low representation in policy and decision-making.
By conducting gender analysis, organizations can better understand the gender roles and dynamics in the communities they serve. This information will help enterprises understand the barriers that women entrepreneurs they are seeking to recruit and retain are facing, allowing them to develop targeted strategies to overcome them. The Alliance’s resource guide on Scaling Adoption of Clean Cooking Solutions through Women’s Empowerment further identifies the common constraints that women entrepreneurs face including lack of access to financing, education, training, and market data, as well as mobility restrictions and discriminatory cultural and gender norms.
In addition, fostering agency-based empowerment and leadership can be critical to more effectively engaging women as micro and small entrepreneurs. Despite their advantageous position to market clean cooking technologies, women entrepreneurs face specific challenges from both their extrinsic social and cultural environment, as well as intrinsic factors. While extrinsic factors directly influence an individual’s capacity to function in their environment, multiple intrinsic factors – such as self-efficacy, agency, motivation, and drive – contribute substantially to women’s competitiveness, growth, and capacity to succeed as entrepreneurs.
Results from a recent Johns Hopkins University study (funded by the Alliance) in Kenya demonstrated that the use of agency-based empowerment training significantly improved entrepreneurial capacity to sell cookstoves: women are nearly 3 times as likely to sell more products as compared with men, and those individuals who underwent the empowerment training were 2.7 times more likely to be top sellers compared to those who participated in a standard entrepreneurial training. Qualitative feedback reports indicated that entrepreneurs could benefit from additional training to build both business and intrinsic leadership skills. In response to this study, other studies examining agency-based empowerment trainings, and Alliance partner interest, the Alliance commissioned and released the Empowered Entrepreneur Training Handbook with training material on business, empowerment and leadership (specific to women entrepreneurs in the household energy sector).
---
Response to Question 2: How can we increase the evidence base on the impact of women’s successful engagement in these sub-sectors?
While efforts have focused on developing measurement methodologies to capture the environmental and health impacts of clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels, less is known about the social impacts that result from the clean cooking sector - particularly related to women’s engagement in the clean cooking supply chain. Amid increasing public and private investment in the clean cooking sector, understanding the sector’s social impact has become more important than ever. Due to this gap and our interest in social impacts – particularly in how clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels contribute to the empowerment of women along the supply chain – the Alliance and ICRW have worked together to create a global social impact measurement system: “Measuring Social Impact in the Clean and Efficient Cooking Sector: A How-To Guide.”
The social impact measurement system was developed through an extensive process, including a review of existing women’s empowerment and social impact methodologies and frameworks (e.g., W+ Standard, Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), etc.); an expert Steering Committee convened to solicit insights; and field testing with partners in India, Kenya, and Uganda.
This systematic social impact measurement system can ensure that all actors are in alignment as to how to define and measure the social impacts associated with clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels. The measurement system will increase the capacity of diverse enterprises, implementers, NGOs, investors, donors, and other global stakeholders to understand, quantify, and assess the social and economic impacts of clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels. It will also allow global actors, such as the Alliance, to aggregate data in order to quantify the extent to which clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuel initiatives generate social impacts across contexts and settings.
The social impact measurement system includes three surveys to measure social impacts:
1. The Organizational Social Impact Survey: this is conducted annually within organizations (which may include enterprises and other implementers) to provide insights into the social impacts that clean and/or efficient cookstove/fuel organizations can have through the types of opportunities they provide to their employees and the users of their products.
2. The Employee/Entrepreneur Social Impact Survey: this is conducted with the employees and/or entrepreneurs of clean and/or efficient cookstove/fuel organizations to capture changes that occur in the lives of employees/entrepreneurs as a result of their employment/affiliation with these organizations.
3. The User Social Impact Survey: this is conducted among clean and/or efficient cookstove and fuel end-users to measure changes at the individual and household levels as a result of using the cookstoves/fuels.
The surveys are accompanied with a Social Impact How-To document to guide organizations in implementing and using the surveys, as well as the results.
We urge organizations in the household energy sector to download and use the social impact measurement system in order to capture and share evidence.