Rice Cookers, Social Media, and Unruly Women: Disentangling Electricity's Gendered Implications in Rural Nepal

Rice cookers, social media, and television sets are commonly used in rural Nepal. In this paper we explore how gender norms condition the uptake of these artifacts, and the gendered implications of their uses. We draw on material from a household survey, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews, collected in 2017 in Dhading and Tanahun districts in rural Nepal. The results show that each of the three artifacts initiate distinct, gendered dynamics in terms of uptake, uses, and effects. Women's use of electric rice cookers aligns with their gendered identity as cooks, helping them improve their gendered work and do not trigger resistance from men. In contrast, the use of mobile phones, social media, and television, prompt complex gender outcomes, resistances, and negotiations. Young people use social media to initiate self-negotiated marriages, shunning arranged marriages thus increasing their agency. It was reported that these self-negotiated marriages tend to be earlier (ages 12–14) than before, as young girls drop out of school to marry their chosen partners, thus threatening their empowerment. Access to television and internet has increased awareness about family planning methods, but persistent gender hierarchies hinder women from freely deciding on and accessing these methods. Women and youth pursuing new opportunities that challenge gender norms are sometimes labeled as unfaithful and unruly by others in the villages. The paper highlights the need to understand subversive responses to social and cultural changes mediated by electricity so that policy and practice can support the desired social transformations

Accelerating access to energy services : Way forward

As nearly a fifth of the world's population still lives without access to electricity and double that number with no access to modern cooking technologies, both public and private sector players have invested resources in developing infrastructure to address this energy gap. While there have been exceptional cases like China, Vietnam and Brazil, where the public sector led grid expansion achieved incredible gains in expanding access as to electricity, the general trend over the years in most developing countries has demonstrated that both public and private led approaches have been unsuccessful in independently yielding the desired acceleration and continuity to deliver universal energy access. Despite the inherent benefits of both public and private sector led initiatives, typical systemic inefficiencies and inadequate capacities in both approaches prevent them from fully addressing the principal objective of facilitating energy access for the poor in the long term. Also, even if required investments were adequately capitalized, with the current population growth rate continually outpacing the rate of interventions, the number of people who remained energy poor 15 years hence, would still be the same. Thus, not only is there is a need for providing energy access to the existing population mass, but an equal need to do it fast enough to truly reduce the number of energy poor across the globe. An alternative approach therefore needs to be explored that juxtaposes the social welfare objectives of public sector led initiatives with the enterprise development and growth objectives of the private sector, to support the creation of an enabling ecosystem and a viable value chain that successfully and effectively delivers energy solutions to the last mile. Such a pro-poor hybrid model will essentially address the inefficiencies and inadequacies of both public and private approaches and capitalize on their strengths through a complementary mix of social and commercial goals. The model facilitates collaborations at the corporate, institutional and individual levels to drive individual parts of a unified energy provisioning system, making it adaptable, dynamic, flexible and manoeuvrable within structures, relationships and entities. Policy level support and accompanying regulatory frameworks are critical for clear role definitions, proper planning and execution

Accelerating access to energy services : Way forward

As nearly a fifth of the world's population still lives without access to electricity and double that number with no access to modern cooking technologies, both public and private sector players have invested resources in developing infrastructure to address this energy gap. While there have been exceptional cases like China, Vietnam and Brazil, where the public sector led grid expansion achieved incredible gains in expanding access as to electricity, the general trend over the years in most developing countries has demonstrated that both public and private led approaches have been unsuccessful in independently yielding the desired acceleration and continuity to deliver universal energy access. Despite the inherent benefits of both public and private sector led initiatives, typical systemic inefficiencies and inadequate capacities in both approaches prevent them from fully addressing the principal objective of facilitating energy access for the poor in the long term. Also, even if required investments were adequately capitalized, with the current population growth rate continually outpacing the rate of interventions, the number of people who remained energy poor 15 years hence, would still be the same. Thus, not only is there is a need for providing energy access to the existing population mass, but an equal need to do it fast enough to truly reduce the number of energy poor across the globe. An alternative approach therefore needs to be explored that juxtaposes the social welfare objectives of public sector led initiatives with the enterprise development and growth objectives of the private sector, to support the creation of an enabling ecosystem and a viable value chain that successfully and effectively delivers energy solutions to the last mile. Such a pro-poor hybrid model will essentially address the inefficiencies and inadequacies of both public and private approaches and capitalize on their strengths through a complementary mix of social and commercial goals. The model facilitates collaborations at the corporate, institutional and individual levels to drive individual parts of a unified energy provisioning system, making it adaptable, dynamic, flexible and manoeuvrable within structures, relationships and entities. Policy level support and accompanying regulatory frameworks are critical for clear role definitions, proper planning and execution

In the light of what we cannot see: Exploring the interconnections between gender and electricity access

In this paper we quantify gendered decision-making patterns regarding electricity access, light and appliances in selected rural contexts in Mahadevsthan (Nepal), Homa Bay (Kenya) and Chhattisgarh (India). In the literature, decision-making in electricity has primarily been studied through case studies and qualitative methods. By quantifying some of the gendered patterns in this field, we first seek to document and compare the situation in selected contexts and then to refine the understanding of the nexus between gender and electricity access. The research design was informed by the team's previous qualitative work, and we present results from a household survey conducted in 2016 and 2017. We anchor the analysis in a micro-political approach to energy, and we draw on empowerment and domestication frameworks for analyzing tenets of energy justice. The findings show that women generally had less power than men to make decisions about electricity and appliances and that women's lack of rights in electricity was mirrored in their subordinated position in the socio-material contexts. Comparing groups of women, women in Mahadevsthan, including those who were living without a man in the household, were most likely to have electricity access and acquire appliances of their choosing. Widows in Homa Bay were the least likely to have electricity access. By drawing on the wider literature, we discuss the results in terms of how women's agency and access to electricity and appliances of their choosing in the Global South may be improved