2.3. ENERGY
Box 2.3.7: Entrepreneurial opportunities for women in renewables
wPower: The United States State Department launched the Partnership on Women’s Entrepreneurship in Renewables (wPOWER) in January 2013. wPOWER aims to empower more than 8000 women clean energy entrepreneurs in East Africa, Nigeria and India, who will deliver clean energy access to more than 3.5 million people over the next three years.
A wPower partner in India, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, has trained more than 1000 women to be entrepreneurs selling clean energy and renewable household technologies SSP 2016. Another wPower partner, Solar Sister, established in 2010, has worked with more than 1200 women entrepreneurs in Uganda, Nigeria and Tanzania. Solar Sister equips women to build their own technology-driven businesses by providing a holistic package of inputs including business and technical training, access to products and services, marketing support and on-going coaching. A study conducted by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in 2012 showed that the Solar Sister Entrepreneurs earn an average of US$48 a month, a significant amount compared to average incomes in the region. There were also indirect economic benefits: as users of solar lanterns, the women can spend about 30% less, compared to kerosene, while less time is spent collecting fuelwood means more time for other pursuits (Gill et al. 2012).
Box 2.3.8: Barefoot College – women supporting other women
Barefoot College, an NGO located in India, has provided basic services and training to bring sustainable solutions to rural communities for over 40 years. With a geographic focus on the least developed countries, it emphasizes empowering women as agents of sustainable change. It trains middle-aged women from rural villages worldwide to become solar engineers. In partnership with local and national organizations, the Barefoot team establishes relationships with village elders who help identify trainees and implement community support. Trainees are often illiterate or semi-literate grandmothers who maintain strong roots in their villages and play a major role in community development, bringing sustainable electricity to remote, inaccessible villages. Barefoot College also trains women to run solar desalinization plants, water heaters and solar cookers. Barefoot College invests up to US$50,000 in solar equipment for 120 households in the participant’s village. When the course is finished, the women go back to their villages where they help install solar lamp kits. Each household contributes to maintenance and upgrading of the solar installation, the same amount they previously spent on kerosene, candles or batteries. The women solar engineers are paid a monthly salary for repairing the solar lamps or kits; a committee headed by four women and three men from the village remains in charge of the equipment. In the last decade 1083 villages in 63 countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the South Pacific islands, have been electrified by 604 women solar engineers from Barefoot College, bringing domestic lighting to over 45,000 houses. Source: Barefoot College (2016); Bhowmick (2011)
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