Gender and intercultural approach

For GIZ, and in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the new European Consensus on Development, gender equality is seen as a goal in itself, as a value, as a guiding principle for action and as a key target dimension for all sectors and fields of action.

In this context, the EnDev Project believes that access to energy is essential for meeting basic human needs, as well as helping to reduce poverty, improve health, and enable people to have educational and economic opportunities. From a gender perspective, access to modern energy and sustainable energy services can help to significantly reduce women's excessive work burdens, as well as promote health conditions and opportunities for entrepreneurship and capacity building in communities.

However, social gender roles, which assign different tasks and expectations to men and women, imply different needs, including energy needs. This in turn produces differentiated benefits, with men generally benefiting more than women from energy access and use.

For this reason, although the EnDev project in Bolivia was not originally conceived with a gender focus, over the years it has worked on elements such as the sensitisation of its staff to incorporate and mainstream a gender perspective in all areas of work. This also includes the characterisation of local contexts to make specific needs visible, as well as the adaptation of ways of working in accordance with the different local realities (geographical, socio-cultural, etc.).

In 2016, EnDev Bolivia developed a Gender Strategy with the intention of specifying strategies, actions and indicators for each area of work to support greater participation and empowerment of women in different aspects related to access and use of modern energy.

The Strategy is constantly being refined, and now incorporates actions that seek to further unlock the transformative potential of energy in women's lives.