Supporting last-mile women energy entrepreneurs: What works and what does not. How SDG7 and SDG5 can mutually support one another
Description
Through its Women’s Economic Empowerment programme, ENERGIA, the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, has been working at expanding energy access for the poor through supporting micro, small and medium women’s enterprises and empowering them economically by doing so. The programme focuses on developing women’s enterprises in the energy sector. We worked with entrepreneurs in rural areas and, energy poor communities. The programme was launched following the growing belief that women and their networks can access untapped markets, and their role in upscaling clean and modern energy access, reducing energy poverty and ensuring social and economic development is crucial.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a globally accepted framework to address key challenges such as eradicating poverty and hunger, eliminating inequalities and violence against women and girls, combating climate change and achieving clean and affordable energy access for all. Two of the greatest challenges facing the world in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for Agenda 2030 are universal energy access (SDG7) and gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG5). While the SDGs recognize separately the importance of both, in reality these are inextricably linked, and addressing them together can offer multiple development gains. Women’s economic participation, and their ownership and control of productive assets, is reported to speed up development, help overcome poverty and reduce inequalities.<br />
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ENERGIA believes that SDG7 and SDG5 can mutually support one another, and that working on gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG5), of both female energy entrepreneurs and women energy users, can be an important additional outcome in the energy sector. In the energy access space, women’s entrepreneurship is gaining momentum with new actors including national and international NGOs, private sector organizations, donors and governments starting to work on women’s entrepreneurship in energy. ENERGIA has been working on the intersection of energy access and women’s economic empowerment through its Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme. The WEE programme, implemented between 2014 and 2018, focused on developing women’s enterprises in the renewable energy sector and we will continue to work on this issue in the coming years. Thanks to the programme, 4,153 women are now successful micro- or small scale entrepreneurs and an additional 2.9 million people have access to sustainable energy services. <br />
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In the seven countries, the partners systematically identified current market opportunities as well as the barriers that women entrepreneurs have to deal with, and developed business models that can help overcome these barriers and create viable investment opportunities. Barriers that women energy entrepreneurs face range from discriminatory laws, regulations and social norms that prevent them from starting and consolidating businesses; barriers to education, training and information that translate into weaker business skills and low confidence; and the limited access to financial and business services. Because the factors limiting women’s entrepreneurship are manifold and intertwined, the WEE programme design include a set of integrated measures. The innovativeness of the programme lies in its multi-pronged strategy that combines customised training for the entrepreneurs that emphasizes leadership and agency skills as much as technical, business and financial skills and mentorship support taken right to the doorstep. The programme also has been able to rope in multiple partners to harness their complementary skills (such as energy technology manufacturers; government line agencies; municipalities; local cooperatives, and other community based organisations). A critical element of the programme strategy has been to help women mitigate the key structural barriers that create bias against them, and facilitate changes in the wider enabling environment in which governments, financiers, energy companies and consumers operate support such initiatives.
Implementing partners: Centre for Rural Technology Nepal (CRT/N), Energy 4 Impact, Kopernik Solutions (Kopernik), Practical Action Eastern Africa, Solar Sister. Each of the partners worked with multiple partners, including national and local government, civil society, community based groups and the private sector.
Donors: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland.
Beneficiaries: 4,531 women energy entrepreneurs, 2.9 million consumers of sustainable energy products
In 2014, ENERGIA launched its Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme, which aims to empower women economically through supporting their energy enterprises. Through an open call for proposals, ENERGIA identified five partner organizations in Africa and Asia, who were already working on energy access with women. Together with them, we implemented and improved each step needed to upscale women-centric energy enterprises in hard-to-reach areas and in low-income communities.
The overall WE strategy encompassed a comprehensive entrepreneurship development process that entailed a careful identification of the challenges that women face in setting up and expanding energy enterprises, and then undertaking interventions to systematically addressing them. In this regard, ENERGIA’s partners screened and recruited potential women entrepreneurs, as individuals or in groups and trained the selected women entrepreneurs trained in technical, managerial, leadership and empowerment aspects of energy businesses. Each of entrepreneur received customized support from designated mentors, who were trained by the partner organization. The mentors took the support package right to the entrepreneur’s place of work and demystify ‘business’ for them by assisting the entrepreneur on an ongoing basis: to identify new market opportunities, develop marketing strategies, identify and transact with suppliers, interact with local government authorities, prepare business plans, and approach and negotiate with financial institutions. In addition, the program supported the partner organizations to set up and strengthen product distribution chains to reach remote and rural consumers through renewable energy companies. The partners also built partnerships with the private sector and financing institutions, as well as with local governments to develop a conducive, enabling environment that would support women’s energy entrepreneurship.
Throughout the programme, we have worked to understand consumer demand for energy products, link entrepreneurs with potential markets and with technology suppliers, train them on technology products, business skills and marketing, and develop their confidence and leadership to service these markets. In each country, we have tried alternative approaches, assisted the entrepreneurs to tap new markets, and the partners to forge linkages with relevant local, national and global partners. Considering the various cultural backgrounds and the needs that needed to be addressed, different strategies have been implemented to guarantee the best outcome.
Through a process of collective reflection, we collected applied strategies and models, both successes and failures, into a new publication, titled “Supporting last-mile women energy entrepreneurs: What works and what does not”, result of this four-year journey. The publication analyses lesson learned, successful models and failures. As a learning document, it aims to be helpful for other organisations, partners and governments working on women’s enterprise development, and for practitioners who are working with, or interested in working with, women entrepreneurship models in the energy access space.
The programme’s results have been demonstrated on two levels: Entrepreneur level and user level. In 2017:
• 70% of the entrepreneurs receiving programme support recorded a positive profit margin in each quarter, and more than 95% who had taken out loans or consignments have not defaulted on loan repayment instalments;
• 82% of the entrepreneurs were involved in decisions on major household purchase decisions; and 72% were actively taking business decisions for their enterprises.
Starting with almost nothing or a small energy business, these results show that women like them can run successful businesses, and negotiate and advocate for their interests. From a user level point of view, each of our partners reported a detailed analysis (table 1-4 in the publication) that clearly proves the benefits and progress toward a clean energy transition in the communities the entrepreneurs have worked with.
One of the impacts we would like to highlight is the improved energy access these women have been able to bring to remote and poor communities. A 2017 survey of Solar Sister, one of WEE programme partners showed that Solar Sister customers are mostly living in communities
physically far removed from the main highway, and hence represent the last-mile. In Tanzania, 97.8% of Solar Sister’s customers were dependent on kerosene before purchasing a solar product from Solar Sister. Of the customers who purchased solar lights, 91.6% no longer used kerosene.
Supporting women’s entrepreneurship development doesn’t come without challenges and barriers. An enabling environment play a decisive role as important as the direct support to the entrepreneurs. To achieve this, partnerships between leading organisations, governments, private sector and civil society actors must be strengthened. Cooperation and collaboration between different actors facilitate progress and support women’s energy entrepreneurship as a whole. Access to finance, which represent a major bottleneck for women-run enterprises, must be accompanied by a combination of other measures, such as leadership and agency development, investments in financial literacy and in the ability of entrepreneurs to manage cash flows, and continued mentor support. These services have been seen to increase women’s direct control over resources and increase their self-confidence. Finally, engaging family members including men is critical to women’s enterprise development efforts.
The establishment, management and development of private enterprises occurs within the context of particular policy and legislative environments. A conducive, enabling environment that supports decentralized off-grid renewable energy technologies and products and women’s enterprises is one that includes: enabling fiscal policies for off-grid clean energy products, industry standards and certification of quality assured market products; and an ease in doing business for women, including streamlined processes for business registration and licensing, easy access to information, guidance, application submission and follow up. The need for quality standards and certification is an issue repeatedly faced by entrepreneurs, since substandard products, available aplenty in the markets, severely affect consumer trust and confidence. Even where quality standards for clean energy products are in place, these standards are not always enforced.
In all countries, partnerships were made to leverage from ongoing activities and programmes. In Nepal, the programme supported the women entrepreneurs to raise more than EURO 250,000 as loans from cooperative banks for their businesses. In Senegal, links were made with the government agencies working on agriculture extension, who supported our entrepreneurs through targeted technical inputs on agricultural techniques, while the ENERGIA partner brought in energy improvement techniques.
The entrepreneurs supported in the WEE programme have been unanimous in identifying finance as a major bottleneck. Nonetheless, we also learnt that neither access to finance nor training alone is sufficient for sustained business growth among women’s micro-enterprises. Providing complementary services – such as leadership and agency development, mentor support and investments in awareness raising – are seen to increase women’s direct control over resources and increase their self- confidence. These are critical ingredients for the sustainability of the enterprises they are establishing.
We have learned that engaging family members in the energy business creates an enabling environment which leads to successful outcomes. In Indonesia, the most successful Wonder Women often involve their husbands (Baranova, 2017). In a couple of cases, we found that this led to the husband taking over the business entirely. Adding a “bread-winner” role to a woman with an already high workload can burden her further, as she then has to share breadwinner responsibilities and continue to carry out household and caring work. It is important to understand the context-specific gender dynamics to ensure that men play a positive role in the entrepreneurial efforts of their wives. Finding a balance in engaging men, without allowing them to overpower women-focused programming, is essential.
ENERGIA’s approach was to focus on local ownership of the programs’ outcomes by country-based organisations already committed to promoting gender equality and women empowerment. The organisations that were selected to lead the implementation of the interventions all had credible track records and a recognised presence in their national energy sectors. Institutional sustainability resulted from strengthening ENERGIA partners’ capacities to build gender-responsive sustainably scaled entrepreneurship models at the local level. A network approach was used to develop and share knowledge for inter-partner learning and capacity development and to build a community of practitioners who understand and can continue the programs’ interventions, alongside the publication of program results to achieve wider outreach and profiling.
ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
Economic sustainability in the program was enhanced by the focus on growing women’s energy enterprises economic gains and incentives using market-driven approaches. New jobs and business opportunities have been created for women in energy value chains. All of these increased incomes of the WEs, improved household earnings and created jobs in local communities. In addition, effective engagement with the private sector and financial institutions unlocked financing for women entrepreneurs. 2.9 million people in difficult-to-reach locations in seven countries now have access to modern energy services that they did not have before. This will create a further demand for these products. Renewable energy product suppliers benefit from increased distribution, sales and after sales service networks as a result of their ability to extend credit to enterprises and to final consumers.At the same time, banks, MFIs, cooperatives and village banks, supporting the entrepreneurs see this as a viable business proposition and are providing loan products linked to a pipeline of potential clients.
POLICY LEVEL SUSTAINABILITY
ENERGIA’s engagement in policy platforms kept the gender and energy agenda visible and coherent. Meanwhile, the enhancement of understanding and capabilities of policy makers and other key decision makers on gender issues in energy strengthen the enabling market and policy environment for women’s empowerment and gender equality in the program’s focus countries. The program was aligned to national energy access strategies, helping to reach the most difficult locations and poor communities, as well as developing low carbon development strategies.
SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
The WEE programme reached a large number of people in difficult-to-reach locations in 7 countries that were provided with access to modern energy services that they did not have before. Targeted support to women energy entrepreneurs increased the productivity and effectiveness of their businesses and transforms their livelihoods. Majority re-invested a large proportion of their income for the wellbeing of their families and communities. These formed the backbone of social sustainability outcomes of the program.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
The WEE programme focused on clean energy dissemination. Improved cookstoves and lighting reduce the use of kerosene and firewood and, hence, contributed to reduced deforestation, toxic fumes and greenhouse gas emissions. Women energy enterprises were supported to make more efficient use of renewable energy (RE) and/or to switch to RE, reducing fossil fuel use and GHG emissions as a result.
ENERGIA has supported, between 2014 and 2018, more than 4,000 women in launching and growing small-scale clean energy businesses. These women-led enterprises have delivered clean energy products and services to more than 2.9 million consumers, mostly in rural areas and in low-income communities. We have been able to show that women entrepreneurs can be an effective vehicle to reach energy services to the last mile, unserved communities. We have also seen that majority of the women who earn an income through the WEE programme, reinvest it for their families, especially in children’s education, which offers multiple developmental gains, Under the programme, we have learned five key lessons. Firstly, setting up a comprehensive WEE programme requires time, commitment and core resources. Designing and implementing women’s enterprise development programmes does not follow a single, preferable and predetermined path. Business models and advocacy strategies need to be contextual, trust needs to be built before one can engage with policy- and decision-makers, and it takes time to set up efficient and effective business models together with the women entrepreneurs. We also learned that when programming, aggregating efforts is important and an enabling environment is as important as direct support to the entrepreneurs. In promoting women’s enterprise development, practitioners have to bring together a number of stakeholders who need to operate in tandem: entrepreneurs, specialized support organizations, financial institutions, civil society organizations (i.e. women support groups) and the public sector. Together, they need to perform multiple functions: to provide a conducive policy and regulatory environment; to facilitate access to funding; to provide business development support and mentoring; to link entrepreneurs to markets and to strengthen the value chains as a whole. In conclusion, even though financing represents a major bottleneck to women’s energy business development, this has necessarily be accompanied with a host of complementary services, such as leadership and agency development, investments in financial literacy and in the ability of entrepreneurs to manage cash flows, and continued mentor support, all of which have been seen to increase women’s direct control over resources and increase their self-confidence.<br />
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Regarding sustainability, moving forward, ENERGIA plans to:<br />
• Continue to work with and strengthen existing implementing partners to expand their work, focusing in a select number of countries/regions.<br />
• Explore new issue areas with implementing partners to address persistent challenges, in particular financing, and include added focus on productive uses and inter-sectoral entry points, such as health and education.<br />
• Pilot new approaches/ innovations through engaging existing and new partners.<br />
• Expand private sector engagement, and consider engaging mid- to larger-sized private sector companies as implementing partners.
Hivos Global on the publication:
https://www.hivos.org/news/womens-entrepreneurship-in-the-energy-sector…
Hivos Renewable on the publication: https://www.greeninclusiveenergy.org/2019/02/05/womens-entrepreneurship…
The Beam on the publication: https://medium.com/thebeammagazine/4-reasons-to-work-with-women-when-it…
Storytelling pieces:
● How Suku Maya Majhi is contributing to energy access for all by selling clean cookstoves: https://www.energia.org/how-suku-maya-majhi-is-contributing-to-energy-a…
● When a dream comes true: Neha Shrestha and her story of beauty: https://www.energia.org/neha-shrestha-and-her-story-of-beauty/
● A life as Wonder Woman in Indonesia with Kopernik: https://www.energia.org/life-as-wonder-woman-indonesia-kopernik/
● “If we walk together, we can do it”: https://www.energia.org/if-we-walk-together-we-can-do-it/
Empowerment journeys: https://www.energia.org/empowerment-journeys/
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Tjarda Muller, Communications Coordinator