GECCO webinar: Gender indicators for the energy sector: Challenges and way forward

Location: GoToWebinar

This webinar is hosted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a member of LEDS GP.

Thursday, April 21, 2016 from 10:00-11:30 AM ET

Register for the webinar here.

Co-organized by IUCN’s Global Gender Office (GECCO) initiative & Energia.

Energy interventions have differentiated impacts on women and men, a fact that is rarely addressed, recorded or assessed by programs and projects. Empirical research suggests that household access to electricity can increase girls’ school enrollment in particular, but generally there is a lack of indicators to identify which type of interventions have the highest, positive impact on the lives of girls and boys, and women and men.

Moreover, the demand and use of energy services is not evenly distributed between males and females. While males typically benefit more from large-scale electricity supply either through employment in electricity intensive manufacturing or from involvement in the establishment of the infrastructure, females are relatively highly represented in remote locations, where highest energy demands are for irrigation and cooking.

Gender indicators can be used for different purposes- the above topics are relevant for assessment of benefits. A different set of indicators is needed for evaluation of project or policy design- such as in gender sensitivity to avoiding risks of potential negative consequences of interventions.

At a time when the international community has agreed to work towards achieving new development pathways through the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals–with the goal of achieving universal access to modern energy sources and achieving gender equality by 2030-and the generation of co-benefits from mitigation initiatives, it becomes imperative to understand how progress in the energy sector can be measured in a manner that it captures the social, and specifically the gender, impacts of its interventions.

This webinar will introduce what is relevant to measure in the field of gender and energy, why and how, and who is doing it, as well as the challenges and strategies for defining gender indicators and data collection.