RURAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES: TOWARDS THE EMPOWERMENT OF
WOMEN -
A Case Study of Kavre District, Nepal
Ishara Mahat
Massey University
Conflicting Views
When I started writing this paper, I asked
myself, is it worthwhile to link empowerment
with rural energy technologies? John
Friedmann (1992) defines empowerment as
providing social, psychological and political
power. Can rural energy technologies
provide all these powers to rural women? I
argued with myself, women are always
disempowered with new technology, it is
impossible! However, opposite view has
gained my support over time. Rural energy
technology has potential to save the
metabolic energy and the time of women,
which could be used for other productive
activities that enable women to be socially,
psychologically and politically empowered.
In my view, energy is much more than
mechanical power that is accessible
through technology. Energy from
compassionate point of view should be
linked to the sensitivity of rural women, who
expend their physical energy at the risk of
their lives. Their livelihoods are threatened
due to their heavy workload and
Table 1: Rural Energy Situation in Nepal
Types of Fuelwood Used
Fuelwood
Agricultural By-Product
Animal Waste
Total Biomass Used
Electricity
Petroleum
Coal
TOTAL
Source: CES, 2000
deteriorating health conditions in the
absence of good nutrition and health
services. Women in Nepal have a lower life
expectancy: 53 years as opposed to 55
years for men which contradicts a global
trend (HDI, 1998).
Background of Rural Energy in Nepal
More than 80 percent people living in rural
areas of Nepal depend on traditional fuel for
fulfilling the household energy
requirements, which are primarily managed
by women. In addition, women are the ones
who are primarily responsible for hulling
and grinding activities with indigenous
technologies. In rural mountain areas,
women still wake up early around 4 AM to
hull and grind grain and walk four to five
hours to collect a bundle of firewood. In
such circumstances, womens roles in
managing household energy systems
should not be underestimated.
The table below presents the status of
energy use in Nepal.
Qty of Fuel Used
78%
4%
6%
88%
1%
9%
2%
100%
As shown in Table 1, about 88 percent of
total energy consumption in Nepal is met by
biomass resources, among which, the
major percentage comes from fuel wood
(78%)). The rest (12%) is met by
commercial energy sources petroleum
products (9%), coal (2%) and electricity (1%
(CES, 2000). Only about 14 percent of the
total population have access to electricity
and that covers 3 percent of the rural
population (Banskota and Sharma,
1999:107).
Excessive use of biomass energy is not
only a threat to the environment due to the
high use of forest resources, but also
results in a drop off in agricultural
productivity due to the diversion of
agricultural residues and animal waste from
farms to fireplace. This situation is
worsened by the low-level efficiency of
these fuels, which are a health hazard due
to increased air pollution, particularly to
rural women who are the managers,
producers and users of energy at the
household level (Amatya and Shrestha,
1998).
There are alternative energy technologies
(AETs) that offer significant potential in
terms of reducing womens drudgery, and
improving health conditions, allowing
women to have enough time to be involved
in income-generating, social and
community development activities for their
self-enhancement and empowerment.
These alternative energy technologies are
renewable and include biogas, improved
cooking stoves, micro-hydro power, and
solar photovoltaic (Amatya and Shrestha,
1998:88).
The term rural energy technologies is also
used in my text. This includes AETs as well
as indigenous energy technologies, such as
janto (traditional technique of grinding
grain), dhiki (traditional technique of hulling
grain), and ghatta (traditional water mill),
which are still popularly used as an integral
way of meeting rural livelihood needs.
Gender and Energy: Empowerment
Model
In rural areas of Nepal, energy needs at
household level are directly related to
womens workloads and their time.
However, the womens metabolic energy is
often made invisible and almost forgotten
by the rural energy planners (Clancy, 1998;
Cecelski, 1995). For instance, water mills
for grinding grain fall under energy sector,
whereas women doing the same task with
other indigenous technologies do not.
Cecelski (2000:36) points out that women
are not a special interest group in
renewable energy, they are the mainstream
users and often producers of energy.
Hence, excluding women from the energy
sector not only hampers the women but
also hinders the energy project from being
successful.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to
describe empowerment in detail. However, I
have made an attempt to link empowerment
with socio-economic enhancement of
women through AETs, which can address
the practical and strategic needs of rural
women. I have thus tried to develop an
empowerment model which brings together
gender and energy issues.
 Figure 1: Gender and Rural Energy: An Empowerment Model

Traditional
energy
technologies

Depletion of Increasing
biomass drudgery and
resources deteriorating
health of
women

Intervention
with
Active Alternative Recognition of
participation and Technologies gender roles
involvement of and priorities
women

Practical Strategic
needs needs

Empowerment

Figure 2 demonstrates the potential for
empowerment of rural women through
AETs.
Due to the limitations of traditional
indigenous technologies, there is a need for
interventions, which help to reduce
womens labour and time, which could be
used for other productive purposes, and to
improve the health conditions of women.
For this purpose, an intervention with AETs
is needed. Such intervention should be
based on recognition of gender concerns at
both macro and micro level in terms of
recognising womens roles and
responsibilities and their priorities regarding
rural energy, and increasing participation of
women from planning to implementation of
AETs. The focus should be on reducing
expenditure of human energy rather than
only saving fuel. Hence, it is very important
here to consider both the practical gender
needs that see women supplying the
regular energy needs at household level,
and the strategic gender needs related to
providing opportunities for women to be
involved in social and economic activities
for their self-enhancement and
empowerment.
Research Design
This research study is of an exploratory
nature. Both quantitative and qualitative
methods were used for data collection and
analysis. A household survey was carried
out using standard survey questionnaire;
key informant interviews were also
conducted using structured, and semi
structured checklists. Different methods of
participatory research, such as social
mapping, focus group discussions, activity
profiles, and gender analysis matrix, were
used for detailed case study analysis.
Figure 2
Analysis was done in two different areas,
one with and one without a rural energy
project implemented by Rural Energy
Development Program (REDP)11 in order to
compare the two and to see the changes in
socio-economic status after having access
to alternative energy technologies.
I selected Kavre district of Nepal for my
research location. It is one of the hill
districts lying in the central development
region (see Figure 2) of the country. Kavre
is one of the first districts where the REDP
has made its initial intervention to promote
and implement alternative energy
technologies in the country. There are 10
districts where the REDP has been
implementing rural energy projects. Kavre
district was selected in consideration of the
fact that the research implications will have
a wider application throughout the country,
because the features of the mid-hill area
are representative of many rural parts of the
country as 39 out of 75 districts fall into this
category.
 Have Alternative Energy Technologies
(AETs) Enabled the Empowerment of
Women?
I am going to discuss here if AETs have
been able to empower rural women mainly
in terms of saving their labour, workloads
and time enabling them to be involved in
other social and economic activities. Four
main issues have been focused on: positive
and negative implications of AETs on labor,
time, resources and culture, change in time
and workloads of women, social and
economic opportunities, and participation in
rural energy projects.
Positive and Negative Implications of AETs
AETs have both positive and negative
implications for local people especially
access to AETs. At the same time, it was
also noticed that young boys remained idle
listening to the radios and watching
televisions after the advent of electricity.
There was also some dissatisfaction among
women and children in those households
who were not able to access electricity.
Different tools were used to see the
changes and if AETs were really helping
towards the empowerment of women.

Table 2: Implications of Biogas Plant and Electricity as Perceived by Men and Women
Labour Time Resources Culture

-Need to carry more + More time for other -High initial +Good habit of
water work while cooking investment using toilet
with biogas
+less work for +Information from -Initially people
collecting firewood -Long time to cook radios and TVs hesitate to eat the
food with biogas
+Less work for cleaning +Wake up early in the +Less use of cooking because of
Womens dishes and houses morning to work with firewood attached toilet
Group light
+No need to use -Young boys +Change attitude of
kerosene light in every + need less time to hanging around TV men and women
room. cook with little and radios and
quantity reluctant to go to
-More work for dung work
collection +less time in
collecting firewood
+Less work for -Less time in washing -High initial +Positive attitude
collecting firewood dishes and house investment towards village
cleaning sanitation
Mens +Less work for cleaning + Less use of
Group -less time for firewood +Change attitude of
collecting firewood men and women
+ More knowledge
and information
through TV

Men and +Less work for +Less time in +High initial +Positive attitude
Women collecting firewood cleaning dishes and investment towards village
(Mixed house sanitation
Group) +Less work for cleaning + Less use of
-Less time for firewood +Change attitude of
collecting firewood men and women
+More knowledge
and information
through TV
Source: Field Survey, 2002. (+ indicates positive implications, - indicates negative implications)
Table 2 indicates the positive and negative
implications of AETs for men and women.
The groups providing information were the
electricity and biogas users groups. The
discussion took place with womens groups
first and then the same discussion was
done with mens groups followed by mixed
groups of men and women.
The mens and womens groups separately
showed that the workload of women has
been reduced in collecting firewood and
cleaning dishes. However, the women find
it takes a longer time to cook on biogas
stoves for big extended families, which are
common in rural areas. It was further
reported that women needed to do more
work collecting dung and water. In addition,
women feel more obligated to wake up
early to do additional work by electric light,
rather than waiting for sunrise.
Both mens and womens groups accepted
the fact, that there are positive implications
for resources in terms of needing less
firewood and increasing access to
information and news through television
and radio, although, there was only a
limited number of households (around 3 %)
who have television in their houses, and
around 18 percent of households that have
radio and cassettes. However, the women
felt that young boys had become idle
because of radio and television. In addition,
both mens and womens groups explained
that they needed to make high investments
initially to get the access to the micro
Table 3: Comparison of Work Burden of Women
Work Burden Project
Area
Amount of work 1.80
(0.64)
Convenience of 1.18
work (0.44)
Consumption of 1.71
labour (0.58)
Consumption of 1.78
time (0.67)
* refers to the difference between means of two groups is highly significant (p<.0005).
Figures in parentheses represent the standard deviations.
hydropower and biogas plant, though they
were beneficial in the long run.
Both groups reported that there is a positive
implication on local culture in terms of
changes in peoples attitudes and habits in
using toilets and in keeping high sanitation
standards around the houses and the
village. There was a change in mens and
womens attitude towards womens mobility
in and outside the village. The women were
not restricted from attending meetings and
training sessions, and visiting other people
houses to watch television, unlike in the
past.
A discussion also took place with a mixed
group of men and women in order to find
out whether the talks would vary from the
individual groups. It was found that, in this
group the males dominated the discussion
though womens thoughts were also
reflected.
Change in Time and Workload
The time and workloads of women were
further analyzed using some qualitative and
quantitative measures, such as mean,
standard deviation and Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA). This was done to see the
changes in time and workloads of women in
two areas (project and non project areas)
and in two different time periods (before
and after having access to AETs).
Table 3 presents the work burden of
women in project and non-project areas.
No Project Total Sig
Area
2.67 2.17 .000*
(0.51) (0.72)
2.62 1.82 .000*
(0.58) (0.87)
2.68 2.14 .000*
(0.53) (0.74)
2.69 2.19 .000*
(0.56) (0.77)
The above work burden of women was measured into different scales as presented below.

Unit of Scale 1 2 3
Work Burden
Amount of work Light Average Heavy
Convenience of work Easy Average Difficult
Consumption of labour Low Average High
Consumption of time Less Average More

The above table of workloads compares the
womens workloads in project and non-
project areas. The mean score for the
amount of work in the project area is close
to two (1.80) which means that the
workload of women is only average as
compared to the non-project area, where
the workload is close to three (2.67) which
means that their work is heavy. The mean
score for convenience of work is close to
one in the project area and close to three in
the non-project area, which suggests that
the women feel their work is easier after
having access to AETs, while the women in
the non-project area feel their work is
difficult. Labour consumption is also close
to three (2.68) in the non-project area,
whereas it is only average in the project
area. Similarly, in the project area, women
spend only an average amount of time
(1.78) on energy related activities while
more time (2.69) is spent in the non-project
area. The given standard deviations explain
that there is no high variation within the
mean score in both project and non-project
areas. The ANOVA test was done to
measure the variance in work burdens of
women in the project and non-project
areas. It shows that there is a highly
significant difference between the means of
the two groups, since the P value is less
than .0005. Overall, the work burden of
women in the non-project area was higher
compared to the project area.
Table 4 presents the average time used for
energy activities in different time periods:
before and after AETs.

Table 4: Time used for Energy Related Activities

Average Time used

Energy related activities (in hours)
Before After
AETs AETs

Cooking time per meal 1.08 .75

(.93) (.64)

Cooking time per snacks .85 .59

(.79) (.58)

Processing grain 4.31 1.09

(30 kg. of grain) (1.24) (1.48)

Collecting Firewood per 28.03 24.0

month (23.9) (23.45)
Source: Field Survey, 2002. Figures in parenthesis represent the standard deviations.

Table 4 shows that the average time spent
for energy related activities has reduced as
compared to the past. For instance, the
average cooking time after using biogas
stoves and Improved Cooking Stoves (ICS),
has been reduced from 1.08 hours to .75
hours. Similarly, cooking times for morning
and afternoon snacks has been reduced
from .85 hours to .59 hours. There has
been a significant reduction in average
processing times, which used to be 4.31
hours (for hulling and grinding 30 kg. of
grain). This has come down to 1.09 hours
with micro hydro milling, which includes
travel and waiting time as well. The waiting Opportunities for Socio-Economic
time was mentioned to be very short, Enhancement
because of speedy processing unlike the AETs have provided different kinds of
traditional water mill. opportunities to men, women and also to
the children in terms of having reduced
The average time for collecting firewood workloads, exposing them to new
was calculated in a different way, because, technology, and allowing more time for
the time required for collecting firewood study. The local people also felt that they
(one bhari) was the same but it varied with have had opportunities to learn about AETs
the amount of firewood used after having and development programs and practices
access to biogas stoves and ICS. The inside and outside their village with the
above figures represent the average time awareness program facilitated by REDP.
spent per month for collecting firewood. Women spent less time and energy in
Since, only around 30 percent of managing household energy systems.
households have access to biogas stoves However, an interesting thing is that women
and ICS, there was not a big change in never seemed to have free time and were
firewood collection time. always busy in one or other activities. They
had very limited time to be involved in any
In general, there was a reduction in use of social and economic activities even after
firewood especially after use of the biogas having access to AETs. However, there
stoves. It was mentioned that women go to were in fact no real opportunities available
the forest only occasionally now and the at village level, where women could use
firewood collected from around the field their spare time and labour for their self-
near the house was sufficient after using enhancement and empowerment.
the biogas stoves. However, the women
also found they had more work in caring for The bar chart below (Figure 3) shows the
livestock such as proper feeding, collecting time availability for women for social and
dung and water. There was a considerable economic activities.
reduction in processing time after having
access to the micro hydro mill.
.

Figure 3: Time Available for Social and Economic Activities

project area non-project area
Percent age of Respondents

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
Hours per day Hours per day

In both project and non-project areas, the non-project areas in accessing time for
highest percentages (58% and 46% social and economic activities, because in
respectively) of respondents have two the project area although women have
hours per day for social and economic saved time for processing jobs, they were
activities. Around 24 and 30 percent of still always busy either in the house or in
respondents in the project area and the the farm.
non-project area respectively reported that
they have no time for any social and During the focus group discussion, a
economic activities. A few respondents in woman mentioned that,
the project area have 3 to 4 hours for being
involved in such activities. There was not Our work is waiting for us, who
much difference between the project and will let us go to enjoy meetings
 and training. (Personal
communication, Dec. 2001).
Some other women mentioned that they
could manage few hours, if they have some
opportunities in the village.
Only a few women were involved in
incense-making, soap-making and
vegetable farming in their spare time. There
was potential to establish small scale
enterprises at the local level such as poultry
farming, small bakeries, or dairy products.
These activities also required the access to
credit, raw materials and marketing
network.
At present, the AETs were not used to their
full potential. For instance, the biogas plant
installed in a small number of households
was mainly aimed for producing gas for
cooking, while neglecting the use of slurry
for making a good compost to use in the
farm for increasing agricultural production.
There were very limited extension services
to teach local people especially women to
explore the full potential of AETs.
Womens participation in AETs seemed to
be more in terms of community mobilisation
and saving and credit activities, than in real
planning and development of AETs. The
women also participated by providing
labour during construction of canals. Even
though women were well represented in
rural energy boards, their involvement in
the decision-making process was low.
Summary and Conclusions
Women felt AETs like electricity and micro
hydro mills are very convenient. In general,
there was a reduction in human energy of
women in processing grain and collecting
firewood. However, the womens energy
was used in additional housework than
being used for other productive activities.
Similarly, the time saved with micro hydro
milling was not visible, since they were
always occupied with one or other activities
at household level. However, women were
ready to manage their times, if they can
have some opportunities at the village level.
They wanted to involve in some income
generating and social activities that enable
to increase their socio-economic status.
The biogas stoves and improved cooking
stoves (ICS) were mainly used as a
complement to the traditional ones, since
they did not fulfill the variety of cooking
needs of rural women. The use of electricity
was limited to lighting and milling activities.
In some cases, it was only used for lighting.
The use of biogas plants has reduced
womens work in collecting firewood and
cleaning activities, however, there were
some other tasks involved in managing
these plants which remained invisible, such
as collecting more water and dung, and
mixing them properly. These jobs were
sometimes shared by the male members of
the family as well.
Overall, AETs have been able to address
the drudgery of rural women by enabling
the reduction of the human energy they
expend in managing household energy
systems. However, AETs are out of the
reach of many rural women and have
covered a very limited population, since
they are still costly for majority of the rural
households. In addition, AETs are not
integrated with other economic and social
activities, on which women could use their
saved time and labour, so as to ensure their
self-enhancement and empowerment.
Acknowledgments
The support for this paper from my
supervisors, Dr. Barbara Nowak and Dr.
Regina Scheyvens, is gratefully
acknowledged.
Notes
1
REDP is a project supported from UNDP
to implement the alternative energy
technologies in different parts of Nepal)
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