Strengthening the Empirical Evidence: Gender Inclusive Energy Policies Enabling Progress Towards the SDGs

Gender equality and energy are both critical in international efforts to reduce poverty and combat climate change. This has been acknowledged in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and their importance is cemented in Goal 5 of the SDGs which is intended to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, and Goal 7 that aims to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. Energy interventions impact men and women differently and access to modern energy services is crucial to transforming the lives of men and women. Both in developing and industrialized countries, it is vital that current and future energy policies take into account the differential needs of both women and men. However, robust empirical evidence is missing to prove these differential needs and that taking a gender-sensitive approach leads to better outcomes. In addition, there is need to strengthen the link between researchers and policy makers as well as practitioners in order to have more informed policy development and to ensure that the objective of access to sustainable energy for all is reached.

This side event will bring together researchers, policy makers and practitioners to reflect on the state of art of the empirical evidence on energy interventions that are delivering on gender impacts and the ones that are not. Furthermore, the aim of this side event is to identify key gaps within the existing research and pinpoint areas that needs to be addressed to ensure more gender equitable outcomes of energy interventions. The discussions coming forth from this side event will also contribute to HLP 1: The role of Energy in the Post 2015 Development Agenda and focus on the need to build and create new evidence on the links between gender, energy and poverty reduction.

docum: Debajit Palit – “Exploring Factors that Enhance & Restrict Women’s Empowerment through ‘Electrification'”, Lucy Kitson – “Gender, Subsidies and Subsidy Reform”, Nthabiseng Mohlakoana – “Productive Uses of Energy and Gender in the Informal Food Sector”, Presentation by Jossy Thomas, Ana Victoria Rojas – “Enabling Equality: Tracking Gender Considerations in Energy Interventions”, Session Summary