March 8th – International Women’s Day!

As an enterprise committed to promoting gender equality, Econoler would like to commend the excellent work done by Ms. Joëlle Matte, our lead expert on gender equality and social inclusion.

Just returning from a one-month-long data-collection visit to the Pacific region, Joëlle is drafting a report making a comparative analysis of the two sexes’ situations in that region’s energy sector. This report’s objective is to inform the policy-makers about the measures to be taken to increase women’s involvement in the value chain of sustainable energy.The field data collection work was done as part of a project funded by the Canadian Trade and Investment Facility for Development (CTIF). All this data has allowed our expert to make several observations. One of these observations concerns energy access, which varies with the gender roles. In this region, women bear the entire burden of household work. This includes gathering, preparing and storing fuels for cooking and meeting the household’s needs for water. However, the national energy-access programs have rarely considered providing access to technologies or measures to facilitate cooking and obtaining water. To create better financial opportunities for women, access to energy has to be redefined first. A new definition that is specific to the Pacific region will be proposed in this report and will be discussed by the member countries at the next consultation workshop.

To learn more : http://bit.ly/3aybwv5