When I moved to Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil town, 36 years ago, the city’s power grid was overloaded and poorly maintained, causing power outages lasting days and sometimes weeks. At home, more often than not, I cooked by candlelight. The experience felt like a cruel joke since I worked in the oil industry. As soon as we were able, we purchased a backup generator. But the average city resident, earning less than a dollar a day, didn’t have that option.
Today, power outages continue in Port Harcourt and throughout the entire country, as much of Nigeria’s rural areas remain off the grid. According to Power Africa, a U.S government initiative, two out of three people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity.
Increasing access to electric power through an alternative energy source can improve the quality of life for everyone in Africa, but women in particular stand to benefit from the introduction of Renewable Energy there. So as the United States steps ever further away from being the global leader on addressing climate change, I hope that African leaders don’t follow us. The social costs of persisting in this path are too high.
The World Bank says women and girls make up 70 percent of those living in energy poverty. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 30 percent of women lack access to electricity in urban areas and more than 75 percent lack access in rural areas.
Gender inequality is closely linked to poverty, and access to modern energy enables women to improve their finances, according to USAID. So the connection between energy access and women’s economic empowerment comes as no surprise.
The Renewable Energy industry is particularly effective at providing a path to economic empowerment and healthier living for women for several reasons. The industry, which grew 18% during the past year, provides higher pay for women relegated to work in the informal economy trading small consumables. Women’s participation in the industry ensures attention to the need for clean cooking conditions in African homes where kerosene cook stoves should be replaced with solar cook stoves. And as part of the Renewable Energy workforce, African women gain access to a reliable source of energy reducing their time burden of performing tasks like securing firewood, used to produce a biomass form of energy. Even the quality of healthcare is improved with access to Renewable Energy in off grid communities where mid wives still deliver babies by cell phone back light, kerosene lamp or candlelight.
The Renewable Energy’s young workforce welcomes women to train for technical positions and in some cases engineering jobs, so government and non-government organizations should work with the industry to introduce robust, next-generation training programs enabling women to produce high-demand and high-paying products and services.
Earning power establishes political power at home and at work. I saw this firsthand in African households while I lived in Port Harcourt. When one partner, earning low or no income, gives up too much self – core values and priorities - that partner tends to give in around decision making. “Historically speaking, that person has been the woman,” says psychologist Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.
Higher paying jobs and greater revenue generation from business ownership can give African women the confidence to make their voice heard.
Now, as a board member for ReNew Solar, a full service renewable energy company and as an independent program evaluator for a U. S. government agency, I’m encouraged to see the industry setting a new trend in workforce training for African women. For the most part, the Renewable Energy Industry training program design encourages women’s empowerment. However, there are flaws in the approach. Chief among them: women are excluded from decision-making roles and program curricula lack a career planning element.
Fortunately, not everyone gets it wrong: Solar Mamas, a Barefoot College initiative which operates in more than 21 countries, include village women in the management and design of solar energy programs.
Another design flaw is the absence of a career planning element. Program developers need to include exploration of high growth careers. Otherwise, women entering the Renewable Energy industry could become locked into entry-level, low paying jobs. Dr. Bipasha Garua, an expert on women’s issues , says worldwide women represent fewer than six percent of technical staff and below one percent of top managers in the Renewable Energy industry. This, too, has to change.
I hold on to hope that African leaders will not follow Trump’s decision to defect from the Paris Climate Accord or otherwise scale back protections. It’s time for them to fully commit to revolutionizing energy use. And by default, empower their mothers, sisters and daughters.