Jatropha farming the option for changing gender inabilities
Culturally defined roles have served to prevent women from enjoying the many opportunities that the industrialized world offers despite that fact; they play an important role in exploitation, utilization and conservation of natural resources.
African traditions, portray the woman as a water hauler, the cook, the fuel wood collector, productive and the reproductive machine while the man as the owner of all property and whose life is outside the home, master of all resources pocketing all the economic benefits and making decisions on land, and water use even when they do not provide the labour that turns raw materials into usable entities.
Gender bias is obvious even as reinstated by Lambrou, 2006, " ..Attitudinal barriers are deeply rooted in patriarchy-base socialization, which men are considered superior to women - a systematic disempowerment that leaves women with little presence..."
Unfortunately, the burden of poverty is still borne by the woman. The challenge hence lies in empowering women and making them part of production process because unequal opportunities and treatments hamper women's ability to move forward in all sectors.
Women are better placed to successfully carry out development activities that would elevate their economic status and conserve the environment simultaneously, because of the special attachment they already have towards it. It is actually critical therefore to empower rather than create development activities that will help women sustain their livelihoods with the help of resources that they labour on. These activities should be means that they are comfortable with and that do not create room for them to worry about upsetting cultures that have shaped their attitudes and behavior since time immemorial.
Benefits of the Jatropha Village System
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The Jatropha project will provide the ultimate energy and a sustainable income source that women especially in rural areas need in order to be empowered into being integral members of society and be in the mainstream of production and sharing in the benefits that accrue from their labour to achieve holistic and sustainable development environmentally, socially and economically.
Green Africa Foundation is the sole environmental organization mandated by the government to spearhead an ambitious campaign to enlighten rural communities on the benefits of growing the fuel shrub, Jatropha curcas. The initiative apart from making sure that clean, and cost efficient fuel is manufactured within homesteads thus serving other purposes, its mission is also to ensure that energy is used as a tool to accelerate equitable benefits to all genders and economic empowerment for urban and rural development of all persons while protecting and conserving the environment.
The Foundation's Jatropha projects acknowledge and seek to incorporate women -the resource managers- in this development issue in order to not only accelerate the attainment of sustainable development but also hasten the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
| GOAL | TARGET | HOW ENERGY CONTRIBUTES TO ACHIEVING GOALS AND TARGETS | GENDER PERSPECTIVE | | Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger | Target 1: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day | More efficient fuels and fuel-efficient technologies reduce the time and share of household income spent on domestic energy needs for cooking, lighting, and heating (poor people pay proportionately more for energy). (Reddy, 2000)
Reliable and efficient energy can improve enterprise development.
Lighting permits income- generating activities beyond daylight hours.
Reliable energy sources can be used to power labour-saving machinery and increase productivity of enterprises.
| Women and girls are generally responsible for the provision of energy for household use, including gathering fuel or paying for energy for cooking, lighting, and heating.
When women's time and income is freed up from these activities, they can reallocate their time toward - tending to agricultural tasks and improving agricultural productivity and
- developing micro-enterprises to build assets, increase income, and improve family well-being.
| | | Target 2: Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger | Improved access to cooking fuels and energy-efficient technologies increases the availability of cooked foods (95% of staple foods need to be cooked before they can be eaten).
Pumped water for drinking, cooking needs, and irrigation systems deliver more water than can be carried.
Mechanical energy can be used to power labour-saving machinery and increase productivity along the food chain (for example, by processing agricultural outputs through milling and husking).
Improved access to efficient fuel and technologies reduces post harvest losses and water needs through better preservation (for example, drying and smoking). | Women are generally responsible for cooking and feeding their families and often for subsistence agriculture and food processing.
A well-developed energy sector helps to promote economic opportunities for women, allowing them to build assets, increase income, and improve family well-being.
| | Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education | Target 3: Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling | Access to efficient fuels and technologies frees up the time of female children, who are often pulled out of school to help with survival activities (fetching wood, collecting water, cooking inefficiently, and crop processing by hand, manual farming work).
Energy can create a child-friendly environment (through access to clean water, sanitation, lighting and space heating/cooling).
Lighting in schools allows night classes.
| Girls are more likely to be taken out of school to help with domestic and agricultural chores than boys.
Spending on schooling, especially for girls, increases with higher incomes for women.
Girls are more likely than boys to be affected by a lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities, reducing school attendance.
| | Goal 4: Reduce child mortality | Target 5: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five | Cleaner fuels and technologies help reduce indoor air pollution, which contributes to respiratory infections that account for up to 20% of the 11 million deaths in children each year.
Traditional stoves can be unsafe (causing, for example, burns and household fires)
Cooked food, boiled water, and space heating contribute to improved nutrition and health.
| Women have primary care for the health of children.
Women and young children spend the most time indoors.
Women and girls are generally responsible for cooking, often with unventilated open fires. | | Goal 5: Improve maternal health | Target 6: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio | Energy services can provide access to better medical facilities, including medicine refrigeration, equipment sterilisation, and operating theatres
Energy can be used to produce and distribute information on sex education and contraceptives.
| Excessive workload and heavy manual labour (for example, carrying heavy loads of fuel wood and water; arduous and repetitive agricultural and food processing tasks) may affect pregnant women's health and well-being. | | Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability | Target 9: Reverse loss of environmental resources
Target 10: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
| Over harvesting, land clearing, or environmental degradation can make fuel wood more scarce, forcing the poor to travel farther and spend more time and physical energy in search for fuel.
Availability of cleaner fuels and energy-efficient equipment reduces demand for fuel wood and charcoal, increases availability of dung and agricultural wastes for fertilizer, and reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions | The chances of sexual assault and other risks (for example, of snake bites) increases the further women and girls must travel. |
The Jatropha project is also expected to help sustain food security, provide remedy for indoor and chemical pollution, be the ultimate solution to energy scarcity and a lay a platform for a sustainable income source that women especially in rural areas need in order to be empowered into being integral members of society. Besides to be in the mainstream of production to achieve a holistic and sustainable development environmentally, socially and economically.Jatropha projects will in addition offer women the opportunity to become legitimate partners in environmental management, through encouraging there participation in tending the trees.
Jatropha system in itself is a low risk enterprise requiring a relatively small investment capital, no academic qualifications, technological know-how or professional experience. Therefore it does not leave out most women, especially those in rural areas that are limited in their capacities due to illiteracy or lack of technological advancement.
Access to sustainable and affordable energy has a positive impact on a wide range of factors influencing rural communities: from improved health, to changes in the division of labour, to better educational facilities, economic prosperity and increased social mobility. Introduction of a more rational and sustainable energy system like Jatropha will have positive gender effects changing traditional social roles and tasks.
The foundation, together with experts from Hiroshima University in Japan has finally ensured that simple manual squeezing machines are readily available to help already participating women farmers crush the Jatropha seeds and be the first benefactors immediately their first crop matures.
Finally the Green Africa Foundation expects the project through its recognition of women's abilities will contribute to change gendered beliefs about women. Its intent is to appreciate differences between women's and men's lives as well as other differences in these groups creating an approach needed to produce outcomes that are equitable.
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