Off grid solar boosts female empowerment by providing rural West African women with greater economic opportunity, increased access to information and better health.
Author: Fatoumata, Director, Corporate Finance, Oolu
West Africa has some of the highest levels of energy poverty and gender inequality in the world; off-grid solar electrification is the perfect vehicle for addressing both.
From providing rural women with greater economic opportunity to offering better access to information, deploying off-grid solar products in West Africa not only supports SDG7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), but also helps achieve SDG5 (Gender Equality).
Off-grid solar working for women
The livelihoods of women in off-grid West Africa are typically characterized by ‘traditional’ domestic and reproductive roles. Providing women with access to solar products empowers them in three principal ways.
Greater economic opportunity
From cooking and cleaning to washing and caring, women in off-grid areas tend to be responsible for the household’s energy needs and spend over four hours per day on unpaid care and domestic work (three times more than men).
Solar energy can vastly reduce this time burden and give women more time to pursue economic activities. For example, solar home systems (SHS) provide at least four hours of additional light each day enabling women to produce goods for sale in the evenings. Solar generators can run appliances that minimize the time taken to produce and process food (i.e milling and grinding) and set up economic enterprises from home (i.e. using fridge-freezers to sell ice and cold beverages). Meanwhile, solar water pumps remove the need to spend hours fetching water.
Greater access to information
Off-grid women’s livelihoods are hindered by a lack of access to information. When it comes to schooling, young boys are typically considered more of a priority than young girls, and women are less likely to travel long distances (i.e. to neighboring villages) than men.
Solar brings education into the home. The extra hours of light enable young girls to study in the evenings and enable girls to spend more time at school as there is less time pressure on helping their mothers with domestic duties. Solar-powered TVs also provide women in remote communities with information from the outside world. Watching TV is generally restricted to men traveling to the nearest grid-connected village, but having a TV at home gives women increased access to information and entertainment.
Greater health and safety
Be it smoke from kerosene lamps or pollution from wood-burning cookstoves, off-grid women are at higher risk of lung diseases than their male counterparts. They come into contact more regularly with toxic fuels like paraffin and charcoal, and spend more time in enclosed polluted spaces (i.e. the household).
Solar’s clean energy vastly reduces women’s toxic exposure. Solar electrification also provides the power for rural health clinics to stock vaccines in fridges and provide greater ante-natal care. What’s more, with solar lighting, women can leave the lights on at night for greater security with no extra financial cost.
Changing social norms
Enhanced economic autonomy, educational attainment and physical health all combine to change social attitudes towards women in off-grid West Africa. Increased female empowerment reorients the traditional household dynamic, providing women with more of a voice and greater bargaining power. In other words, making women more equal in the eyes of men.
At Oolu, we know that women disproportionately benefit from solar energy, but rarely make the energy purchasing decisions. It’s why all our agents ensure that women understand the security, health and economical benefits of solar products during outreach demonstrations, as well as the costs and flexible payment structures (i.e. different ways to pay based on their incomes) to encourage greater uptake.
Deploying solar in off-grid West Africa is not just about electrifying communities, but electrifying women’s futures too.