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Exploring Factors that Enhance and restrict Women’s Empowerment through Electrification (EFEWEE) (completed)

The project seeks to account for electricity’s effect on women's empowerment, both as women use electricity’s services and become involved in its provision. The project highlights a comparison between centralized (grid) and decentralized systems and the effects on women’s empowerment.

About the project

The EFEWEE project aims to examine how women's opportunities and empowerment are affected by:

  • The choice and design of technological system, with a specific focus on comparing grid/centralized and decentralized solutions for electricity supply

  • Ownership and management of the systems

  • The process of electrification

  • Socio-cultural factors and practices (e.g., gender ideologies, roles and relations, household finances, poverty, etc.)

  • Policy, regulations, and financing schemes

  • International actors, development partners, and non-governmental/civil society

The research is organized into the following six work packages

  1. Project management

  2. Literature review and research design

  3. Empirical case studies in India, Kenya, and Nepal

  4. Field survey

  5. Synthesis

  6. Dissemination, stakeholder engagement, and recommendations

For more information, see EFEWEE’s home page: http://www.efewee.org/index.php

Duration: 2015 – 2018

Objectives

By examining these issues for various types of interventions in India, Kenya and Nepal, the project team intends to provide an analytical comparison of the processes, technologies, and contextual factors that come into play in electrification in terms of how they condition women's degree of Empowerment.

Financing

The research is financed by DIFD, UK. It is organised by the ENERGIA Gender and Energy Research Programme Framework through a five-year Sub-Programme "Gender and Sustainable Energy for All" which aims to build the evidence base for improving the effectiveness of energy interventions by taking a gender approach. Taking a gender approach in policy and action is regarded as necessary in order to achieve the target of universal access to energy by 2030.

Cooperation

A research project at SUM, University of Oslo (Norway) / TERI (India) / Seacrester Consulting (Kenya) / Dunamai Energy (Malawi).

 

Tags: India, Kenya, Nepal, Energy, Women, Global South
Published July 1, 2015 2:11 PM - Last modified Mar. 5, 2019 8:14 AM

Participants

  • Tanja Winther Universitetet i Oslo
  • Kirsten Ulsrud Universitetet i Oslo
  • Karina Standal Universitetet i Oslo
  • Debajit Palit
  • Margaret Matinga
  • Anjali Saini
  • Mini Govindan
  • Henry Gichungi
Detailed list of participants