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"HIDDEN NO MORE" INTERVIEW SERIES: NEPAL CHANGE-MAKER, SRIJANA THAPA

7/22/2019

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To commemorate International Women's Day this year, we launched the Hidden No More feature series to spotlight women change-makers who have transformed gender barriers, and made significant contributions to energy access for marginalized communities.

​We are excited to feature our second change-maker -- Ms. SriJana Thapa, a grassroots coordinator for micro hydro development in Nepal.  Ranisha Basnet of energypedia UG took the opportunity to speak with Srijana to understand her experiences in the gender-energy nexus.  Read below!
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Srijana Thapa, Team Lead, Renewable Energy Program at DCRDC, Nepal.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Srijana Thapa and I am the Team Leader at the Dhaulagiri Community Resources Development Centre (DCRDC). DCRDC is a social organization based in Baglung district in Nepal. I have a bachelor's degree in Social Science and Humanities from the Tribhuvan University, Nepal.

How did you start your career?

Since early 2000, I have been involved in various community development projects at DCRDC. In 2002, I worked as a coordinator for the Women’s Empowerment Program and then in 2006 became the Team Leader of the Renewable Energy Program, which includes all forms of decentralized renewable energy (such as solar and biogas), but we focus primarily on micro hydropower (MH).

Tell us about your current work in the MHP field?

As a Team Leader, I, along with my team, am involved in social mobilization, MH demand collection, user community formation and in raising awareness about the subsidy program for MH.

How has the MH scenario changed since you started in 2006?

In 2006, there was no infrastructure such as roads in the target villages. The villagers also did not have the funds to pay for the initial installation of the MH systems and would have to take credits. They would then need 3-4 years to pay off the credit. The mechanical and electrical equipment were transported by either men or animals such as mules to the MHP sites. Thus, it would take longer and was more expensive to construct micro hydro projects (MHPs). Similarly, there was very little demand for electricity from the MHPs. For example: for a 25 kW MH system, only 10 kW would be used, as there were no or fewer productive end use activities. 

In recent years, these villages are being developed and have infrastructure such as roads. Now, there are also more donors who provide funds for the initial construction of the MHPs such as the Rural Municipality/Municipalities/Irrigation Office. Access to roads have enabled new productive end uses activities and ensured that the electricity load is not wasted. Nevertheless, the national grid is expanding to the rural villages and the MH systems will have to be connected to the national grid to ensure the long-term sustainability of the MHPs. We should also focus on promoting more productive activities instead of building new MH plants.

Tell us about the women empowerment program within your organization?

Earlier in 2006, gender empowerment and social inclusion (GESI) was not the focal point of our program, but since 2013 we have been actively promoting women empowerment programs. As part of the GESI program, women are trained as MH system operators and receive trainings for different skills such as accounting, leadership, and business. In our MHP user communities, the treasury is also always handled by the women. The government also provides subsidies for women-led businesses, which have helped to promote women’s participation. Currently, there are different women-led businesses such as a mineral water factory, beauty parlor, bakery, tailoring etc.

In the earlier days, it was really hard to involve women as they were very shy and hesitant. During the community mobilization, we always involved the key persons of the village to convince them about the need for women’s participation in the MHPs. This helped us to increase women’s participation in our MHPs.

Tell us about your challenges as a woman hydro practitioner?

As a Team Leader, I did not face many difficulties. The villagers always welcomed us during the field visit. I also had the opportunity to work with a great team that supported me a lot.  The only challenge was traveling long distances to reach the MH powerhouse, which I personally found  physically exhausting.
 
What kind of change did you observe in the MH community in the last 10 years?

In the last 10 years, a lot has changed. For example: our MHP sites now have access to roads. Many micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are now using the electricity from the MHPs. This has resulted in an increase in income, people are self-employed, and this has drastically changed the rural livelihood. The people also have access to communication devices such as television and mobile phones. The clean electricity from the MHPs have replaced the polluting kerosene lamps. This has resulted in improved health condition for women, saved time and the children are also able to study at night.

Previously, the women had to mill the grains manually but now with the arrival of electricity, it has reduced the burden on the women. Since most of the men migrate overseas or to cities for work, women are now mostly involved in productive end use activities. These women entrepreneurs are also inspiring other women to start their own businesses. 

Would you like to share any final thoughts for our readers?

When we are working with the community, no matter how qualified we are, we always have to follow the bottom-up approach. We need to first know the community and their needs and not impose what we believe is the right strategy. Every day, I am learning something new from the community and I believe I still have a long way to go.

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THE GENDER-ENERGY NEXUS: INCREASING WOMEN LEADERSHIP LEADS TO LONGER-LIVED HYDRO MINI-GRIDS

7/8/2019

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Last month, I had the opportunity to talk about the gender and energy nexus at the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2019.  My talk was based on the experiences of incorporating gender into the micro hydropower projects (MHPs) of the UNDP Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihoods (RERL) project at the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) in Nepal and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in Pakistan.

Both Nepal and Pakistan have a rich history of MHPs -- with over 3000 projects in Nepal and over 1000 projects in Pakistan. Therefore, the countries make for good cases to look at how we could involve women in the MHPs to not only empower women but also to contribute towards the financial sustainability of the mini-grids.​
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​​When we talk about gender and energy nexus, we find a lot of papers and discussions that circle around household energy. It does make sense as energy-poverty in households is commonly gender-biased, with women mostly gathering the firewood and cooking on smoky fireplaces and men having relatively easier and more access to resources such as land, credit, and education. This access to resources also supports their position as the decision-maker of the family. Similarly, when new electrical appliances are bought, they are designed to meet the demands of the men, although women are the ones doing most of the labor-intensive chores in the household. Nevertheless, apart from household energy, another important aspect is the productive activities of women. When we look at the MHPs in Nepal and Pakistan, one of the biggest challenges is the lack of cost recovery tariff and low load factor. To tackle this challenge, it is important to recognize the productive activities of women and integrate them as potential customers. Also, promoting women-led productive activities provides an additional stream of income for MHPs – ultimately resulting in sustainability of the MHPs. 

Looking at the MH projects from a gender lens, we see that women are already involved in energy projects: during the construction phase, they supply the required physical labor and during the post-installation phase, women are represented in the MHP communities but mostly as token women. They oftentimes have no decision-making authority and the productive end use activities are also mostly owned by men. So, it is clear that women are already involved as of now, but the question is how to involve them further so that it benefits the projects financially and also empowers the women. Based on the experiences from Nepal and Pakistan the following ways are proposed.
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Knowledge Empowerment of Women: Apart from the physical labor, women should also be consulted for their resource knowledge. For example, women are better able to tell when the water level is high or low in their village and also know about their forest, land, local customs, etc. Involving women in MHP planning also empowers them as they see that their knowledge is valued. In countries like Nepal where there is a high outflux of men and youths to cities and abroad for work, training women as operators ensures that your trained manpower stays in the MHP site. This reduces the cost of training the operators again and again. In Pakistan, experiences showed that when women are involved in MHP activities like running the loading center or tariff collection, there are less absences as compared to men. The customers also appreciated the fact that women were more reliable and accountable as compared to men.

Women Ownership of the MHP – In Pakistan, women are the shareholders of the MH system. After involving women as shareholders, it was observed that women were more accountable for the MH plant. For example, they would take initiative for the repair and maintenance of the MHP, which was previously lacking. As a board member, they were also involved in tariff setting and paid special attention to making MH tariff affordable for other female entrepreneurs. 
Therefore, involving women increases their accountability towards the MHP and also leads to better and more inclusive management – ultimately leading to sustainable MHPs. 

Women-Owned Productive End Uses (PEU) - The Government of Nepal provides a subsidy to every female-owned business. This has encouraged women to run their own businesses in Nepal. Currently out of 2500 PEU, 474 are owned by women. Also training such as bookkeeping and management is provided to help them run the business.  In Pakistan specific productive end use training is provided to women such as sewing, jam making, milk seller, freezer facilities and carpenter. This helps to boost their confidence as well as their household income. 
Gender integration is a gradual process and will not happen overnight. The MHP implementation and operation & maintenance are dominated by men and the work itself is seen as men’s department. This hinders the participation of women, especially in terms of involving women into the operation of the MHPs. The prevailing gender norms in South Asia also make it difficult to ensure equal participation of women. The powerhouses in many cases are located in rural far-off sites which makes it difficult for women to travel, due to security issues. Thus, it is necessary to dive deeper into these issues and design specialized solutions for each case. Also, it might be difficult to involve women in the beginning, but experiences have shown that when people see empowered women, more women are inspired to follow suit. Therefore, gender integration should be treated like a long-term process and not a checklist on the MHP installation.
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By HPNET member Ranisha Basnet
[email protected]
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IRENA'S BHUTAN RENEWABLES READINESS ASSESSMENT

7/8/2019

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Bhutan’s commitment to “Gross National Happiness” and thriving eco-systems is being advanced by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Renewables Readiness Assessment (RRA), stemming from its renewable energy (RE) policy/jobs research AND from practitioners who have pushed for RE in Bhutan for decades. 

I was fortunate to take part in the Bhutan RRA Validation Workshop in Thimpu on July 2, organized by IRENA and the Royal Government of Bhutan.  I look forward to the outcomes of IRENA's multi-actor, research-to-action approach to bring forth climate resilient development and inspire other countries to do the same.


- Dipti Vaghela
HPNET Facilitator and Manager
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WATCH: WEBINAR ON ENABLING LOCAL BANKS TO FINANCE HYDRO MINI-GRIDS

7/1/2019

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If you missed our second quarterly webinar last week, Mini-grid Financing:  Enabling the Role of Local Banks, you can watch it below!  

The webinar covers
- incentives for local banks to lend to RE mini-grids
- challenges for local banks and how development partners can alleviate them
- example of a 7-bank program (!) lending to RE mini-grids
- checklist for mini-grid developers to access local bank financing.

Special thanks to
WISIONS, energypedia UG, and the speakers Kapila Subasinghe, Dinesh Dulal, and Margarita Manzo for making it possible.

Stay tuned for our next quarterly webinar, “Mini-Grid Sustainability: Transitioning to Enterprise-based Micro Hydro"  in September
 here!
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