Africa has enormous potential for clean energy, given its ample resources of hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power. However, current highly centralized energy systems often benefit the rich and bypass the poor. On the other hand, decentralized renewable energy systems offer a great opportunity for women’s empowerment. As these are deployed at the local level, women are more likely to participate in related decision-making and be involved in the energy value chain.
Given energy’s critical role in enabling sustainable development, efforts towards sustainable energy delivery must be intensified and accelerated at the local, national and regional levels. A number of small-scale solutions that simultaneously increase women’s opportunities and enhance sustainability have recently been implemented by UNDP-UNEP PEI and UN Women and their partners as they have sought to inform processes aimed at making climate and environment policies more gender sensitive and bringing women to a clean energy path and including them in climate resilient initiatives. The most promising of these concrete project solutions at the local level should be up-scaled. They should also be combined with actions at the political level and linked with national policy processes, in order to initiate structural reforms.
The experiences documented in this paper provide an overview of lessons learned which can help address bottlenecks and inform the way forward for gender-responsive climate, energy and environment policies and programmes.