Impact of a rural solar electrification project on the level and structure of women’s empowerment
Open accessAbstract
Although development organizations agree that reliable access to energy and energy services—one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals—is likely to have profound and perhaps disproportionate impacts on women, few studies have directly empirically estimated the impact of energy access on women’s empowerment. This is a result of both a relative dearth of energy access evaluations in general and a lack of clarity on how to quantify gender impacts of development projects. Here we present an evaluation of the impacts of the Solar Market Garden—a distributed photovoltaic irrigation project—on the level and structure of women’s empowerment in Benin, West Africa. We use a quasi-experimental design (matched-pair villages) to estimate changes in empowerment for project beneficiaries after one year of Solar Market Garden production relative to non-beneficiaries in both treatment and comparison villages (n = 771). To create an empowerment metric, we constructed a set of general questions based on existing theories of empowerment, and then used latent variable analysis to understand the underlying structure of empowerment locally. We repeated this analysis at follow-up to understand whether the structure of empowerment had changed over time, and then measured changes in both the levels and likelihood of empowerment over time. We show that the Solar Market Garden significantly positively impacted women’s empowerment, particularly through the domain of economic independence. In addition to providing rigorous evidence for the impact of a rural renewable energy project on women’s empowerment, our work lays out a methodology that can be used in the future to benchmark the gender impacts of energy projects.
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Reliable access to modern energy services can have an important influence on productivity and earnings.
“Reliable access to modern energy services can have an important influence on producƟvity and earnings.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
Cleaner cooking fuel and lighting access can reduce health risks and drudgery, which are disproportionately faced by women.
“Cleaner cooking fuel and lighting access can reduce health risks and drudgery, which are disproporƟonately faced by women.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
Participating in energy supply chains can increase women's opportunities and agency and improve business outcomes.
“ParƟcipaƟng in energy supply chains can increase women's opportuniƟes and agency and improve business outcomes.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
Provision of energy access can play a critical enabling role for new productive activities, livelihoods and employment.
“Provision of energy access can play a criƟcal enabling role for new producƟve acƟviƟes , livelihoods and employment.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
Access to modern energy services has the potential to empower women by improving their income-earning, entrepreneurial opportunities, autonomy and reducing drudgery.
“Access to modern energy services has the potenƟal to empower women by improving their income-earning, entrepreneurial opportuniƟes, autonomy and reducing drudgery.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
Improved access to electric lighting can improve women's safety and girls' school enrollment.
“Improved access to electric lighƟng can improve women's safety and girls' school enrollment.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
Energy efficiency measures and the provision of energy access can free up resources (e.g., financial, time savings) that can then be put towards other productive uses (e.g., educational and employment opportunities), especially for women and children in poor, rural areas.
“Energy efficiency measures and the provision of energy access can free up resources (e.g., financial, Ɵme savings) that can then be put towards other producƟve uses (e.g., educaƟonal and employment opportuniƟes), especially for women and children in poor, rural areas.”
From Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages (2018) · cites this paper as Burney et al. (2017)
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Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Burney J, Woltering L, Burke M, Naylor R L and Pasternak D 2010 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 107 1848
- Gugerty M K and Kremer M 2008 Am. J. Polit. Sci. 52 585 · DOI
Cited by
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Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages
McCollum, D. L., Echeverri, L. G., Busch, S., Pachauri, S., Parkinson, S., Rogelj, J., Krey, V., Minx, J. C., Nilsson, M., Stevance, A.-S., et al. (2018) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaafe3 · Cited by 448 · see citing works
- Authors
- Burney, J., Alaofè, H., Naylor, R., & Taren, D.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Burney, Jennifer
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2017-09-01
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 095007
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2754499229
- Cited by
- 51
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 1.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- UA Campus Repository (The University of Arizona) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Energy and Environment Impacts
- Social Sciences › Education › Gender, Education, and Development Issues
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
- Keywords
- women's empowerment, energy access, rural electrification, financial independence, empowerment measurement, latent variable analysis, Sustainable Development Goal 7, Benin
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