Gender Awareness: Towards a Sustainable and Just Energy Transition. Part I

Jun 16, 2020 | Kathrin Meyer
View Original

According to the United Nations, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls is the is the “foundation of a peaceful, prosperous and sustainbale world“. This goal stands alongside other aims such as SDG 7 which describes the importance to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. One might assume that the SDGs pursued by many states and actors around the world would have a serious impact on projects and that they would consider issues according to their mutual dependence, such as gender equality and energy which would help them to meet international agendas of sustainability and equality. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Although numerous international conventions and gender action plans are already available, there’s still a significant data gap and it’s one of the key obstacles when it comes to the connection of energy and gender. Since energy consumption data are often collected without any gender-specific differentiation, the data appears to be neutral, but is actually imprecise and ignores the fact that access to energy is not equal an therefore used and perceived a divergent way.