PAY ATTENTION TO WOMEN'S ENERGY NEEDS (DAILY GRAPHIC, PAGE 11, AUGUST 24, 2010)

Story: Della Russel Ocloo, Dodowa

THE Deputy Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr Mrs Mamaa Entsua-Mensah, has called on policy makers and planners to pay special attention to the energy needs of women.
She said there was a strong relationship between women and energy, since women sourced and utilised energy for household and economic activities aimed at improving and adding value to rural activities.
Dr Enstua-Mensah made the call at a gender and energy seminar organised by the Gender and Energy Network, a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with the Ghana Regional Appropriate Technology Industrial Service (GRATIS) Foundation and the Ministry of Energy.
It was on the theme, “mainstream gender concerns in the design and implementation of energy projects”.
She said action taken at the local level toward the promotion of sustainable energy options should also support global development goals, stressing that, “A consideration of sustainable energy needs in macro-economic and energy sector reforms, as well as sustainable development planning, would tremendously support the country’s quest towards achieving the millennium development goals and poverty reduction”.
While commending Cabinet for approving the Renewable Energy Bill, Dr Enstua-Mensah also called for an improvement in the energy sector programmes aimed at ensuring that gender issues reflected in energy policies.
She regretted that “ women scientists were not celebrated in our part of the world, although they have over the years invented various machinery such as the ‘chorkor smoker’, which have boosted the traditional trade of fishing business among women”.
Reviewing a gender audit report conducted in 2009, participants tasked policy makers, planners and environmental stakeholders to strengthen national policy frameworks towards supporting growth and equity if the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and poverty reduction strategies were to be achieved.
According to the President of the network, Mr Asamoah Topen, although largely underdeveloped, particular attention was being paid to oil and gas sector while little attention was given to gender concerns and their impact on the population.
“Although, there are high level electrification across the country with 70 per cent of the population connected to the national grid, only a percentage of households used grid power as their source of energy for industrial activities,” he said.
Delivering the keynote address, on behalf of the Chief Director of the Ministry of Energy, Mr Ben Okine, Director of Research, Monitoring and Policy Planning, indicated that since women were the main drivers for providing energy for small and medium enterprises, particularly in agriculture, commercial and service sectors, mainstreaming gender concerns in the design of energy projects were being considered at the implementation stages.
He indicated that the gender audit conducted by the network with Energia International, covering the ministry and its major industrial players such as the Volta River Authority, Tema Oil Refinery among others, had informed the ministry’s decision for gender desks across the stakeholder establishments.
Mr Okine stated that the ministry through its rural electrification programme had extended electricity to the doorsteps of women in rural communities with an access rate of 66 per cent.
He said since basic health care in rural communities without electricity was a great challenge, a solar PV electrification programme for remote health facilities was being implemented by the ministry aimed at improving lighting and the storage of vaccines.
“Over 75 of such facilities have been provided for remote health centres in the three northern regions,” he said. He also pointed out that a reliable and equitable distribution of kerosene to rural communities that still used the fuel as their main source of energy was being put in place, whilst the ministry, as part of its initiative to reduce the burden on firewood and charcoal, was also intensifying the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) programme.
The national focal person of the network, Dr Sabina Anokye-Mensah, in her welcoming address, stated that meeting the gender energy challenges was imperative to the overall goal of strengthening national energy policies and programmes.
She held the view that women provided the bulk of human energy for crop production and transport where there was no availability of mechanical energy.
“Capacity building to mainstream gender into energy projects, as well as the provision of information that clearly outlines the links, would go a long way towards achieving government’s poverty reduction programmes,” she noted.