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 Gender equality is a key driver in the delivery of energy services in developing countries because providing women and men with access to productive resources has significant implications for growth and reducing poverty. The synergies between gender, environment and the energy sector were first recognized in relation to biomass energy. Women were recognized as users and collectors of fuel wood, and as victims of environmental deterioration that caused energy scarcity.
Time use surveys have shown that women spend long hours in fuel collection. The burden increases as deforestation worsens, and this affects the time available to women for other activities including income-generating activities, education and participation in decision making. Access to modern energy affects women and men differently.
Taking men's and women's different constraints and needs into consideration when designing energy policies and projects can significantly enhance economic development and the sustainability of projects. In many countries women represent an unrealized potential asset for the development of the energy sector through the supply and demand chain.The challenge for realizing this potential is how to move towards a framework for mainstreaming gender in energy operations in the 21st century.
A key lesson for energy policy makers is that the involvement of both sexes in planning and decision making is central to the success or failure of energy interventions.
In developed countries, the links between gender, environment and energy have been explored mainly in the areas of equal opportunity in the energy professions, decision making in energy policy, pollution and health, preferences for energy production systems, access to scientific and technological education and the division of labour in the home (Clancy and Roehr 2003). There is also some indication in industrialized countries that women's preferred research agendas may differ from men's: they tend to be more skewed towards research on renewable energy and social aspects of energy (Clancy and Roehr 2003).
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