Fueling Sustainable Development for Women and Girls with Clean Cookstoves

[niyad]

Fueling Sustainable Development for Women and Girls with Clean Cookstoves





. . . . .

As the global development community prioritizes a broad range of interventions to ensure that women and girls are able to thrive, they cannot forget about how access to energy drastically impacts the lives of women and girls. It may seem obvious, but every person everywhere needs to eat cooked food and when families do not have access to clean cookstoves and fuels, it is women and girls who suffer most.

There are dire health, environmental, and socio-economic consequences for the nearly 3 billion people who rely on biomass for cooking and breath in toxic cooking smoke. This daily exposure is one of the world’s biggest killers, particularly for girls and women in the developing world – 4.3 million people die prematurely each year. Additionally, access to clean cooking solutions can significantly reduce time poverty for women and girls who spend many hours each day collecting fuel and cooking. With this freed time, they can pursue education, income generation, or social opportunities.

The situation is even worse for crisis-affected women who sometimes walk for hours to find firewood, which increases their vulnerability to gender-based violence and physical injuries. And, as the world continues to see the impacts from climate change, women and girls are forced to walk even further to collect fuel or use even more toxic fuels, such as trash.

While women benefit significantly from access to household energy, they are also central to the success of clean cooking interventions. They can catalyze the market as clean energy entrepreneurs and lead efforts that develop effective and sustainable solutions. They are not just victims—they are change agents whose involvement will determine the realization of the goal to achieve sustainable energy for all.

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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/05/20/fueling-sustainable-development-for-women-and-girls-with-clean-cookstoves/

[ismnotwasm]

1. K&R

[hunter]

2. Bottled gas and electricity is a BIG deal.

My parents and my wife's parents both live in rural areas and have been retired for many years. Bottled gas and electricity make their lives much more comfortable than my great grandma had it.

My great grandma cooked meals and heated her wash water on a wood stove. Her house had no indoor plumbing. She refused assistance into her late eighties. The first help she agreed to was her grandson delivering wood ready to use in her kitchen stove. Previously she'd always gathered and cut wood herself.

To a little city kid like me my great grandma was a terrifying woman , especially when she was swinging an ax. She was also skilled with knives, I'd stare in utter fascination as she'd cut up fish, birds, and small mammals for dinner. Her hands moved so fast I couldn't follow. Maybe that explains my love of biology. Or my reluctance to eat meat. I do eat animals sometimes, but I'm aware when I do. Humans are omnivores.

My great grandma's little two room house had electricity, occasionally powering one or two forty watt light bulbs. Children were not allowed to turn the lights on or off. My great grandfather had agreed to rural electrification to support his useless radio habit. After he died, my great grandma had always resented and cursed the very minimal amount she paid for electric service each month, less than $5 out of the homestead's average annual income of maybe $8000, good years. Even bad years nobody starved. I also remember my great grandma scolding my mom's cousin for installing an electric pump on his home's well and a cold water tap in the kitchen, all mail order from Sears. She accused his wife of being lazy, because, you know, a good woman walks through the snow or the desert heat, to the well or the river, and carries water back to the house in a bucket.

No, that's bullshit. Damnit, this is the twenty-first century, and every household ought to have a kitchen with a tap providing clean water, and some non-hazardous means of heating water and cooking food.

[niyad]

3. your great grandma sounds a most formidable woman indeed. and you are correct. this is the

twenty-first century, and all of what you mentioned should be the absolute MINIMUM for each household.

[niyad]

4. . . .