Firewood collection remains a huge workload for women, limiting them to engage in other productive activities, according to the latest official report seen by APA in Kigali on Thursday.
The Gender Strategy Blueprint said the biggest gain in electricity access in Rwanda was in use of solar panel, which shows the strong impact of government promoting the use of solar panel to rapidly increase the access to electricity to the population.
For female headed household, the use of solar panel has increased from 1% to 4.5% while for male headed household it has risen from 2% to 8.5% in three years, the report said.
70.5% of 985 surveyed male and female headed households believe that unavailability of energy mostly for cooking and lighting affects community safety especially for women and girls while collecting firewood, fetching water and travelling during evening and nights.
It mentioned risks and fears by women and girls include rape, home burglaries and cases of accidents which may endanger their lives.
The Gender Strategy Blueprint for 2021-2025, Rwanda in collaboration with various development partners is emphasizing the empowerment of women as clean energy enterpreneurs or consumers.
In partnership with the African Development Bank, some of these initiatives are focusing in empowering women through access to finance and markets while on the other hand efforts should be put on accelerating employability and job creation through skills enhancements, it said.
Speaking during an exclusive interview with APA, Rwanda’s Country Manager of the African Development Bank, Haji Fauzia Mwita hailed current government efforts to ensure that effective gender mainstreaming are taken on board.
“Clean energies access [for women] matters because of its multiplier effect to several sectors of the economy,” Ms Mwita said.
Among the use of these resources include income generating activities women, according to Mwita are considered not only as recipients but also as energy consumers, employee in the energy sector or energy production providers.
CU/as/APA