By Engku Shariful Azni Engku Ab Latif
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 (Bernama) -- A gender responsive renewable energy (RE) policy in ASEAN needs to focus on people's livelihood, especially women who hold together households, micro businesses, and community services, as the region moves towards energy transition, said experts.
Nachatira Thuraichamy, the Climate Action Network Southeast Asia (CANSEA) senior project coordinator, said the policy should not just measure power scales in gigawatts and megawatts, but set targets and budgets for what family values mean and time saved from unpaid care and domestic work. It should also consider women in technical and managerial roles and women-owned energy enterprises.
"ASEAN-level guidance now calls for exactly this kind of measurement discipline to put gender and social inclusion requirements into energy plans, procurement, and monitoring, and to publish sex-desegregated indicators, which are the keys.
"So, yes, metrics are important, but are we measuring the right metrics to understand the intersectional issues on the ground," she said as one of the panelists during a parallel session entitled "Accelerating Renewable Energy Deployment through Gender-Responsive Policy" at the ASEAN Energy Business Forum (AEBF), here today.
Echoing the sentiment, World Bank lead energy specialist Yussuf Uwamahoro said a truly gender responsive RE policy should not treat gender as a kind of an afterthought, but as a core part of how it should be designed, and thus, deliver energy transition. He added that policymakers need to know where men and women stand in the energy sector, whether in access to clean energy or job creation.
Yussuf noted that at the World Bank, they have realised that when women are engaged in projects, be it engineers or community leaders, or innovators, those projects are not only inclusive but also successful.
"It (the policy) is about creating opportunities for women to participate in, supporting entrepreneurs, be it in solar energy (sector) or the wind (sector), and really making sure that women get appropriate training and financial support, be it in cities or in rural areas.
“So this has to be inclusive. We cannot leave them behind and think that we will really be successful in terms of green energy transition," he said.
-- BERNAMA
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