11 July 2018
HLPF Side Event Considers Gender in SDG 7
UN Photo/Marco Dormino
story highlights

The event highlighted linkages between SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy).

Anita Shankar, Johns Hopkins University, spoke about building the evidence base for women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship to improve the effectiveness of energy interventions.

9 July 2018: On Monday, 9 July, on the sidelines of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), ENERGIA and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) organized a side event on gender in SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and closing the knowledge gap.

Elizabeth Cecelski, ENERGIA, outlined linkages between SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 7, noting that around three million women participate in the cooking energy sector.

During the event, speakers also highlighted, inter alia:

  • priority actions for improving gender-equal energy access, such as accelerating the transition towards renewable energy, including through decentralized solutions;
  • the impacts of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene and gasoline subsidy reform on women and the poor in Bangladesh, India and Nigeria;
  • the need for increased awareness and decision-making opportunities for women on the choice of cooking fuels;
  • the impact of energy services delivery on women businesses in the informal food sector in South Africa, Senegal and Rwanda; and
  • the social dimensions of energy use, including energy education for women.

Krista Riddley, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, called for promoting women entrepreneurs to use cleaner, more efficient fuels, and emphasized focusing more on women’s needs and solutions suited to those needs.

The Indian Government’s ‘#GiveItUp LPG subsidy’ campaign aims to motivate the voluntarily surrender of LPG subsidies.

Govind Kelkar, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, discussed political economy factors that influence gender equitable energy access in India, highlighting, inter alia, the need to recognize women’s unpaid household work and property rights, and the Indian Government’s ‘#GiveItUp LPG subsidy’ campaign to motivate the voluntarily surrender of LPG subsidies.

Anita Shankar, Johns Hopkins University, spoke about building the evidence base for women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship to improve the effectiveness of energy interventions, and said gender-aware interventions will help catalyze progress, including, for example, those related to mobile-based financial services for enhancing decision-making power and the building of confidence and personal agency. [ENBOTS Coverage of Side Event on Gender in SDG 7] [ENERGIA Website]

IISD Reporting Services will be providing coverage of selected side events during the HLPF, which is meeting through 18 July. [ENBOTS Coverage of Selected HLPF Side Events]


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