News

The European Commission, under the Intelligent Energy - Europe programme, has given financial support to strengthen gender and energy networking in Africa.

[BRUSSELS Jan 2005] Mainstreaming gender into energy policy, planning, programmes and projects is crucial for poverty reduction and sustainable development. The European Commission, under COOPENER (one of the four main fields of the Intelligent Energy - Europe programme) has agreed to support the TIE-ENERGIA project implemented by ETC Foundation and Eco. Consortium members include KuSiNi and Practical Action - East Africa. COOPENER supports European Community cooperation with developing countries. The project runs until June 2007 (30 months).

The TIE-ENERGIA project will ensure that gender is integrated into energy issues in Africa by strengthening the human and institutional capacity within and beyond the Africa Gender and Energy Network, consisting of partners from 12 African countries.

In line with the objectives of the COOPENER action of the EUEI, this project, in the short and medium term, will create better awareness within the countries on the importance to address gender and energy issues in poverty reduction. The capacity of the governments, enterprises and institutions to frame policy and develop strategies that address gender, energy and poverty will be increased. Energy initiatives will be better integrated into overall development activities with due attention to gender issues.

In the longer term, this will improve the access of poor people, particularly women, to affordable energy services, which in turn will contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development.

The main objectives are:

• to create a critical mass of self-confident women and gender-sensitive men who would engage in changing policies, programmes and practices that affect women's energy choices;
  
• to increase awareness, knowledge and skills of a selected group of development practitioners - planners, policy makers, project implementers - to integrate gender and energy concerns into sustainable development and poverty reduction programmes;
  
• to identify gender gaps in energy-poverty policies and make gender and energy issues visible to a wide audience, thereby supporting national and international
  

networking and advocacy initiatives to influence energy policies and programmes.

The project will be implemented through key activities such as strengthening of Regional Energy and Gender Networks, education and training of 180 practitioners and generate autonomous gender trainers, performing gender audits of energy policies and ultimatively, mainstreaming gender in energy policy.

For more information

Coordinator: ETC Foundation
ENERGIA Secretariat, c/o ETC Netherlands
Tel: +31.(0)33.4326044
Fax: +31.(0)33.4940791
Email: energia@...
Web: www.energia.org

Knowledge communications:
Eco Ltd (UK)
Email: info@...
Web: www.ecoharmony.com

http://energia-africa.org
http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/intelligent/index_en.html

Intelligent Energy - Europe (IEE) is a programme of the European Union for intelligent energy use and more renewables. It has a total budget of 250 million Euros, which is used to co-finance international projects.