Thanks to you both for taking the time to read and comment on the blog. I’m clearly going to have to work on my comedy skills in the future.

For energy and gender links, I suspect “Energia” – a network on gender and sustainable energy – is a good start for the literature (http://www.energia.org/). Here’s the link to the gender pages of HEDON (household energy and development network). http://www.hedon.info/cat28&deep=on

Re the primary school in Argentina, in fairness, I should add that this was part of quite big programme, which has had positive impacts – particularly in quite remote areas where grid extension is unlikely (and certainly not running past the front door). A (non-Oxfam) paper I wrote reviewing this should be out in the next couple of months.

Congratulations to Practical Action on making the call for energy for all. We’ve already been drawing on your rich experience to think through how renewable energy relates to Oxfam’s existing programme and advocacy work, so let the conversations continue…

Sarah

Fantastic that you support Practical Action’s ‘Poor People’s Energy Outlook 2010′ and work on energy more generally.

On the issue of energy access being a ‘campaign that needs to happen’, I just wanted to mention that we at Practical Action are launching exactly that (a campaign on energy access)!

The campaign is called ‘make the call: energy for all’ (www.practicalaction.org.uk/makethecall) and encourages the EC Development Commissioner, who effectively controls the world’s biggest aid budget, to support the goal of universal energy access by 2030.

Would love to discuss ways in which we might work together to generate support for this campaign and the issue of energy access more generally …

Helen Marsh
Campaigns
Practical Action

great post and thanks. A few thoughts:

1. that was a terrible terrible joke and you should be ashamed of yourself.

2. thanks for highlighting the confused motives and interventions that lead from combining energy access (right to energy) with climate change. They’re different and should be treated separately (mostly). I always say advocating for poor people’s access to sustainable energy is like campaigning for the right to organic food. idiotic.

3. gender. i wonder how much has been written and said on the gender-differentiated benefits of access to energy – especially for domestic use. I suspect that it’s probably one of the most gender differentiated interventions imaginable. Think of the vast female labor-savings that come from domestic energy access: gathering cooking fuel, drawing water. the huge health benefits of removing soot from cooking. the improvements in physical security (and reproductive control) in having better and cheaper night-time lighting. do you have information on this?

4. love the example of the all the solar detritus at the argentine school. I think the reality of technology development and delivery in this sector is totally shameful. another example of supply-led development interventions.

gawain