In October, aligning with our mission to support the dissemination of development research, we organized our first communications training course. Researchers from low- and middle-income countries gained invaluable tools to communicate their papers effectively to a broad, non-academic audience. The training was a success, and we’re excited to now count this activity as a cornerstone of our program, alongside the blog.

All this while, we kept doing what we do best: spreading development research throughout the world, one article at a time, giving you, our readers, the expertise to unpick the problems that hamper successful development. As the year concludes, the GlobalDev team took a moment to reflect on the themes and blogs that we published in 2023. Here is a snapshot of our year.

Climate finance was at the heart of our attention at GlobalDev in 2023. In a series organized with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) and LUCCC/START, GlobalDev authors tackled the core concepts and roadblocks of climate finance, its sources and its effects on different communities. They notably introduced diverse methods for gauging the shortfall in financial resources for addressing climate change and underscored the critical role of increased access to climate finance for women in low-income countries to enhance community resilience to climate change.

Additionally, research featured in GlobalDev emphasized the potential of directing climate finance toward poverty-fighting cash transfers to aid around 30 million fishers in the Global South, mitigating the impact of climate change on their homes and livelihoods. Climate finance was also explored as a driver for sustainable sanitation systems that reduce emissions while supporting public health, resource recovery, and climate resilience.

Another central theme this year was taxation and development. In a series organized with CERDI, UCA, FERDI, and the conference team at GDN, our authors presented innovative perspectives on tax systems and their potential impact on development. They emphasized the need to restructure tax and spending systems to support impoverished populations without overburdening governments, and to combat illicit financial flows which direct funds away from crucial poverty-alleviating and infrastructure initiatives.

Authors also delved into the crucial role of tax revenue mobilization to support development goals, particularly by promoting compliance through targeted education efforts among the young. Turning to multinational companies in developing nations, authors critiqued the OECD’s proposed global minimum tax, challenged the efficiency of tax incentives and explored alternatives. Shifting our focus to education funding, the positive impact of Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund, sustained by a 2% tax on profits, was explored as a potential model for sustainable funding in developing countries.

The series further investigated how taxation directly or indirectly offers solutions to development challenges. Authors presented strategies for reducing informality in economies, using Uganda as a case study. This showed how governments can strategically use the tax system to curb informality while simultaneously fostering entrepreneurship and skills development. In parallel, an article examining the Philippines’ decision to block healthcare professionals’ emigration suggested a tax on temporary labor migration could safeguard local healthcare services.

Finally, the taxation series examined adverse outcomes of certain policies. An article exploring the impact of sector-specific taxation on mobile money warned of unintended consequences that could reverse gains from broader financial inclusion. Attention then shifted to Uganda, where an internet tax raised concerns about limiting women’s access and emphasizes the need to analyze gender equality impacts in tax policy discussions.

We addressed gender equality elsewhere with a two-part piece examining the exclusion of women in the development process in Nigeria and Vietnam, along with a discussion on malleable gender differences in social preferences among young boys and girls. We also covered conflict, social mobility, financing development, health, and more.

Throughout the year, our commitment to spreading development research remained steadfast. Looking ahead to 2024, we invite you to stay connected with GlobalDev for insightful articles on even more development challenges. Through our partnerships with key research and development organizations, we have set the stage for new series on critical policy topics, including biodiversity and development. Thank you for your continued support, and here’s to another year of sharing research that matters for development that works!

The post GlobalDev’s year in a nutshell: getting to the heart of climate finance, effective tax systems and gender inequality appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

Communities worldwide are under immediate threat from climate change, particularly those in vulnerably situated countries like Uganda. The impacts of climate change are widespread, affecting agriculture, water resources, and overall socio-economic stability.

Uganda’s National Development Plan states that climate change threatens Uganda’s ambition to transform  into a competitive upper middle-income nation by 2040. In 2019, Uganda was ranked 85th out of 149 countries in the German Watch Global Climate Risk Index of 2017.

It has been calculated that inaction will cost between USD 273 and USD 437 billion between the years 2010 and 2050. Building resilience, adjusting to shifting conditions, and reducing the negative effects of climate change all depend on having access to climate finance.

This finance needs to target the most vulnerable communities for support to be effective and equitable. Within low-income communities, women are frequently more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This article explores how better access to climate finance will not only support women but strengthen communities as a whole and support national economic development.

Women’s vulnerability to climate change in Uganda

The impact of climate financing on vulnerable populations in Uganda depends significantly on gender. This is because the effects of climate change and access to climate finance may differ for men and women.

If we look at differences in how men and women spend their time, for example, women in Uganda are frequently more vulnerable to climate change as a result of risks associated with their work in cooking, water collection, and agriculture.

Women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups are more physically, economically, and socially exposed to risks and disasters. For example, it is mainly women who are burdened with caregiving responsibilities, which makes them less able to escape disasters. Men tend to flee whenever natural disasters like starvation, droughts, and floods occur, and leave women and their children behind.

Initiatives that address the unique needs and vulnerabilities of women should be given priority in climate finance.

Women’s limited access to resources, particularly climate funding, also makes it difficult for them to adopt climate-resilient practices. Women frequently have less access to technology, land, and credit. To address the issues posed by climate change, a comprehensive change in behavior, technology, and recognition of women’s central role in agriculture is necessary. Many of the obstacles faced by women farmers in agriculture could be addressed by labor and time-saving technologies. These would help rural women boost agricultural productivity in a changing climate – with benefits for the whole community and national economy. Labor-saving technology and practices can improve women’s income by reducing the burden of household chores and creating opportunities for economic empowerment. For example, cleaner, more efficient biomass stoves, can reduce the time spent on cooking and collecting firewood, freeing up time for other activities. Similarly, modern agricultural technologies can empower women in rural areas by making farming more efficient and by reducing the physical labor involved in agriculture.

Climate funding can help women’s education and capacity-building initiatives, giving them the tools they need to actively participate in resilience-building initiatives and adjust to climate change. However, many training programs and capacity-building activities on disaster prevention and preparedness target more men than women.

Women’s knowledge is also typically under-represented in evidence bases for disaster mitigation and prevention. Women typically possess a greater understanding of their surroundings, which could be used to improve disaster preparedness initiatives that benefit both men and women, such as environmental management programs and radio-delivered early warning signals.

How to help communities access climate finance.

In Uganda, empowering communities to access climate finance is not only essential for tackling problems brought about by climate change. It will also improve community resilience by advancing sustainable development and enhancing the welfare of disadvantaged groups.

To support the development of women and girls in the context of climate change and the development of gender responsive practices, Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment conducts participatory gender assessments. This involves examining gender differences, along with other social factors, to identify shocks, cycles, and trends (vulnerability), and assessing the results to help the institutions create mitigation, preparedness, and preventive programs that reduce vulnerability and increase resilience.

These aim to improve the effectiveness, as well as sustainability, of projects by incorporating gender considerations into climate financing initiatives. They have ultimately enabled greater resilience for women and girls in the face of climate change.

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) also plays a crucial role in making funds available for at-risk communities. Societies may prepare for and respond to catastrophes more effectively by investing in disaster risk reduction and management, which will ultimately lessen the impact of disasters and foster a safer and more resilient future. To effectively implement DRM priorities and increase resilience to climate-related disasters, access to climate finance is crucial.

Uganda’s DRM priorities are outlined in the nation’s Disaster Management Policy, which was adopted in 2011. These priorities include bolstering institutions and funding for climate change adaptation, creating multi-sectoral adaptation plans, putting programs in place to lessen the socioeconomic impact of natural disasters and climate change, and boosting community resilience to climate change. Municipal leaders are now able to create their own Disaster Prevention, Mitigation, and Response Committees, as well as create and carry out their own emergency and DRM plans, thanks to this support. Bilateral partners also offer capacity building help for disaster preparedness and management as well as post-disaster recovery, intended to increase women’s and vulnerable groups’ access to financing while acknowledging the difficulties these groups have after disasters. For instance, it makes sure that these groups are actively considered in risk assessment and resilience strategy development. This helps communities better prepare for disasters.

Climate finance has the potential to either worsen already existing gender gaps or to be an effective instrument for advancing resilience, gender equality and sustainable development for all members of vulnerable populations. Climate finance projects must, therefore, incorporate gender-sensitive measures for vulnerable communities. Women and disadvantaged communities must also be active players in climate financing projects. These steps will maximize the impact of resources and climate resilience initiatives, while achieving increased empowerment, equity, and inclusivity. Finally, while progress is being made, much more needs to be done to keep improving women’s access to finance in Uganda and around the world.

The post Why women need better access to climate finance appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

Women around the world face deeply entrenched barriers to equality with men. As we discussed in an earlier blog that focuses on Nigeria and Vietnam, women are ill-served by public services and their unpaid care work is underestimated. Their opportunities for paid work are very different to men’s.

The law should be an instrument for enacting justice and overcoming these inequalities. But it can occasionally become a tool of marginalization that exacerbates them.

How is the law contributing to gender inequality in Nigeria and Vietnam? We look at the evidence.

Male dominated legislature and the impact of activism

Due to the male-dominated legislature in Nigeria, women face a significant challenge in representation and recognition. Political science scholar Makama affirms that in Nigeria, patriarchy elevates men to positions of authority in both society and families. The result is that men have more political and economic opportunities including inheritance rights. 

It is noteworthy that advocacy efforts, such as protests, digital activism and community mobilization might gradually be producing modest outcomes. One example is the passage of the “Rivers State Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022” law. This piece of legislation upholds the rights of women in Rivers State Nigeria to a share in the ownership of their family’s property.

In response to heightened violence against women and girls in the country, an example of how public services have not met women’s needs well, advocacy efforts have led to the domestication of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) in 34 states across Nigeria. VAPP is a comprehensive piece of legislation geared towards curbing the menace of gender-based violence in the country. Yet despite the adoption of VAPP across several states, prosecution of perpetrators remains low, which emphasizes the need not just for adoption of existing laws but also implementation.

Regarding the legal framework to address gender inequality, Vietnam has shown significant improvements, but there are still challenges. Vietnam’s first Law on Gender Equality was enacted in 2006, considering forms of discrimination against women, especially ethnic minority and rural women. Since then, several other policies and measures have been adopted, including the National Strategy on Gender Equality for the period 2021–30, which aims to promote Vietnam’s gender equality and women entrepreneurship.

But some provisions of the 2006 Law are not fully consistent with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other treaties adopted by the Vietnamese government. For example, the Law has yet to consider indirect discrimination. Besides, there are considerable gaps between the 2006 Law and Vietnam’s current laws, such as the Law on Marriage and Family, the Law on Prevention and Control of Domestic Violence, the Law on Social Insurance, and so on.

For example, the Law on Organization of Local Administration and the Law on Organization of the National Assembly have not provided enough measures to enhance women’s participation in decision-making bodies. There are still certain obstacles in the national legal framework that have hindered Vietnam’s progress on gender equality and women empowerment, which require further effort to tackle.

Final thoughts 

The examples presented above indicate that women in the Global South still experience inequality in different forms in their families, communities, and the countries in which they live. Research and practical experience indicate that gender disparity affects a number of different facets of life, which taken together could further erode women’s status. The rights of women and girls must therefore be addressed through a multi-sectoral strategy, with a deliberate emphasis on the efficient implementation of legislation and appropriate funding of gender equality activities. Furthermore, development initiatives must take into account the diversity of problems in each region, each country, and each community to create transformational solutions and programmes that reflect the realities of the people and bring women closer to gender balance and full equality.

The post ­Gender inequality and ineffective legal frameworks in Nigeria and Vietnam appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

The latest report by UN Women suggests that achieving gender equality (Sustainable Development Goal 5) is still a long way off and may not be achieved in the next 300 years. This reality has far-reaching consequences for women globally and is especially devastating for women in the Global South, who have already faced significant barriers to full participation in the development process. In the words of Latin American scholar Anna Suzina, women may feature in developmental conversations, but they have “unequal capacity to intervene in the configuration of social order”.

There are many ways in which women in the global South are being left out of the development process. Some include being excluded from public services and economic opportunities, being marginalized in politics, and experiencing violence and exploitation. 

The lack of gender-responsive public services (GRPS) and the underestimation of unpaid care work (UCW) done by women 

The last decade has underscored the need for improved public services that are gender-responsive in both quantity and quality. But in developing and less developed countries, public funding for GRPS is inadequate and ineffective.

In Nigeria, the increased kidnapping of school children, forced marriage, early pregnancy, and Covid-19 have exacerbated inequalities for girls and exposed the lack of the publicly funded infrastructure needed to eliminate these inequalities. According to UNICEF, 18.5 million Nigerian children are out-of-school and 60% of them are girls. The brazen attacks by insurgents in Northern Nigeria have significantly affected children’s education. Keeping girls learning, especially in emergencies, is critical to bridge the gap. 

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the failure of GRPS has contributed to placing the unpaid care and domestic work burden on women and girls, due to their patriarchal gender roles. The social norms with regard to women’s roles in UCW is rooted deeply in Vietnamese society and passed on to the next generation.

The inadequate financial budget assigned to public services, such as early childcare, healthcare, geriatric nursing, education,  housing, employment, and social security has caused women to spend much more time and effort to take care of their families, children, the sick, and the elderly. In remote and mountainous areas, ethnic minority women and girls have to walk further to collect water and fuel.

Photo 1. Vietnamese ethnic minority women and girls in mountainous areas carrying water tanks donated by a company (Source: Vietnam Youth Union) 

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there is a lower share of men taking part in domestic work and those who do spend less time than women (as shown in Figure 1). Nearly 20% of men are not involved in these activities at all. Furthermore, development studies suggest that, “the failure to count unpaid work underpinned prevailing structures of gender inequality and contributed to the perpetuation of inadequate development strategies”.

Although often invisible, the contribution of UCW is tangible. But Vietnamese women’s contribution has not been well recognized within families and communities. The lack of acknowledgment by men about women’s contribution, together with the subjective evaluation without any specific measurement of UCW, have been deepening the patriarchal social prejudice and gender inequality. In Vietnam, UCW primarily done by women has not been counted in GDP’s formulation. 

Figure 1: Share of Vietnamese men and women in UCW (2019) (Source: Viet Nam’s Labour Force Survey) 

The lack of employment equality 

An analysis of the role of women in economic development p   p    rovides an insight into the disparities affecting women’s engagement in the labor force. In Nigeria, despite having more women in the small-scale trade sector, cultural patterns oppose women’s entry into modern trade and prioritize men in employment opportunities. For example, men are four times as likely to hold executive roles, and they are also twice as likely to secure employment, according to the International Finance Corporation.

Similarly, an analysis of employment of men and women at the age of 20 shows marked differences. For example, 4% of men in rural Nigeria are married at the age of 20, in contrast with 50% of women. For women within this category, this trend further reduces their employment prospects as the cultural norm is for married women to take on more household duties, further compounding the inequalities facing girls and women.

In Vietnam, the situation seems better with the high participation of women in the labor market. Both sexes could have equal access to employment and women have comparable working hours with men. There has been progressive elimination of gender gaps in educational achievements as well.

But these indicators are not representative enough of gender-equal opportunity. Vietnamese women face multiple and persistent gender inequalities. They have to carry a disproportionate double burden: be both ‘good at national tasks and housework’.

There is also a common notion recorded in both rural and urban areas that men are breadwinners while women are only secondary earners. Moreover, Vietnamese women have lower quality employment than men. They are over-represented in vulnerable, lower-paid segments and part-time jobs, especially subsistence agriculture and domestic workers.

According to the General Statistics Office, women are twice as likely as men to become domestic workers. Besides, women workers tend to earn less and they are also less represented in decision-making positions. In 2019, while women made up nearly half of the labor force, only 24.7% took management and leadership roles, according to the ILO.

Figure 2 illustrates that while there has been an increase in the paid employment rate and a reduction in the vulnerable employment rate of both sexes over time, there has been a lack of a corresponding decrease in the gender gap. 

Figure 2: Prevalence of paid employment and vulnerable employment by gender in Vietnam (2010–2019)(Source: Viet Nam’s Labour Force Survey) 

With such glaring disparities, what steps can be taken by stakeholders and policy-makers to work towards to the goal of gender parity? In the second and final part of this series, we examine current laws and policies in Nigeria and Vietnam that may be contributing to worsening inequality for women and girls.

The post Women excluded from the development process in Nigeria and Vietnam  appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

Public childcare centers that provide learning and socialization opportunities for children are a favorite policy option for many governments. They are also popular with parents, because they provide free full-time daycare for their offspring, allowing them more time for work or other household activities.

But such centers are expensive to build and run, and so they are seldom offered for free at a large scale, even in high-income countries. Assessing the impact of providing public daycare services is therefore an important objective for research to inform policy.

An assessment can include a number of angles, including caregivers’ labor market outcomes and children’s later learning progression at school. But it is also valuable to measure the effects of daycare attendance on children’s economic and social preferences since for many of them, it is their first experience of socialization beyond the immediate family.

This relates to a more general question about the origin of preferences and whether they are malleable. For example, men and women often have different preferences, which could at least partly explain gender differences in choices and outcomes.

Some would argue that if gender gaps in outcomes are driven by gender differences in preferences, then there is no need to address them. On the other hand, boys and girls may develop different preferences because they are raised differently from very early in their lives. There is growing interest in understanding the origins of gender differences in preferences – and one way to advance our understanding of individual differences in decision-making is to study the development of decision-making in young children.

Daycare in Rio de Janeiro

In 2007, the local government of the city of Rio de Janeiro used a lottery system to determine admissions into oversubscribed public free-of-charge daycare centers. While the lottery was mainly designed to assign daycare spots when they were oversubscribed, the mechanism created variation that makes it possible to identify the effects of daycare enrollment in the context of a large city in a middle-income country.

There was no difference in terms of gender, age, racial and socio-economic background among the children who won or lost the lottery. But winning the lottery in 2007 significantly influenced daycare enrollment in 2008 – and enrollment in 2008 affected enrollment in subsequent years.

Compliance was imperfect in the sense that some lottery winners may not have fully attended daycare and some lottery losers may have nevertheless attended (either because their particular daycare was not oversubscribed or because their parents enrolled them in a private option). But winning the lottery translated into a 34% increase in time in daycare up to the age of 4, allowing identification of the effects of daycare attendance.

In a recent study, we made use of this variation in daycare enrollment to investigate the role of early education in children’s economic preferences and decision-making abilities. Nine years after those who were admitted started attending daycare, we surveyed about 2,100 of the applicants. We administered four experiments with incentives to measure their economic preferences as well as the quality of their decision-making.

Overall, we find that daycare attendance did not affect economic preferences and had no impact on decision-making abilities. But there is one exception: daycare attendance seems to have changed children’s social preferences, particularly those of girls.

How do we measure social preferences?

Children played a sharing task using a tablet. In the task, they had to choose between two different allocations; each allocation paid a number of tokens to the participant, and a number of tokens to another anonymous child (the tokens could be exchanged for toys at the end of the survey).

For example, the children would have to choose between the allocation on the left and the one on the right in the screenshot of the tablet in Figure 1. In this case, the participant chose between the equitable allocation on the left in which the two children get the same (three tokens for the participant and three for the other child) and the allocation on the right in which she received less than the other child (four for the participant, but six for the other child).

Figure 1: Snapshot of the sharing task with an example of disadvantageous inequality. In blue (‘Leandro’) are the tokens assigned to the participating child, while in red (‘Outra Criança – Other Child’) are the tokens assigned to the other anonymous child.

Note that the allocation on the right of the screen improves the allocation of both children but introduces inequality. It represents a case of ‘disadvantageous inequality’ where the participant gets two tokens less than the other child. We infer that a participant exhibits ‘aversion to disadvantageous inequality’ if she chooses the allocation on the left, ‘paying’ one token to ensure that she is not left behind.

The effects of daycare attendance on social preferences

We used the lottery system implemented in Rio de Janeiro to estimate the ‘intent-to-treat’ effects of daycare attendance. The top panel of Figure 2 shows no effect on boys’ choices (in blue). In contrast, the bottom panel shows that daycare attendance increased girls’ aversion to disadvantageous inequality (in pink).

Treatment girls were substantially more likely than control girls to choose the equitable allocation, forgoing one token for themselves and ‘taking away’ three tokens from the other child to ensure they would not be left behind. Among control children, control boys exhibited a greater aversion to being left behind than control girls did. The effects of daycare attendance are large enough to close this gap: treatment girls were as averse to disadvantageous inequality as control boys.

Figure 2: Intent-to-treat effects of daycare attendance on preferences expressed in the sharing task illustrated in Figure 1. Boys on the top panel in blue, girls on the bottom panel in pink. The markers represent effect sizes. The brackets correspond to 95% confidence intervals.

A natural question to ask is why the daycare lottery changed girls’ preferences but not those of boys. One possible explanation is that it changed girls’ perceptions of gender roles, including about how accommodating they are expected to be, and how acceptable it is for girls to be more concerned with their own wellbeing and less concerned with the wellbeing of others.

In any case, the evidence from the Rio de Janeiro daycare experiment suggests that gender differences in social preferences, such as attitudes toward inequality, are malleable and can be influenced by the socialization process experienced by children early in their lives.

The post Early education: the impact on children’s preferences and decision-making appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

The traditional use of polluting fuels by households has high economic costs: smoke emitted causes 3.2 million deaths and many more illnesses a year, while time spent collecting free biomass harms children’s education and adults’ productive activities.

The richer half of the world uses only electricity and gas for cooking for convenience and cleanliness. For households that want to cook with gas, piped gas is preferred, but in its absence, bottled gas is most commonly used. Other technologies—such as solar cookers, ethanol stoves, and biogas stoves—are used far less for a variety of reasons. Advanced-combustion biomass stoves are emerging as a clean and potentially lower-cost option.

Electricity may not be a viable option where there are acute power shortages and rolling blackouts. Power shortages and the absence of natural gas pipelines characterize sub-Saharan Africa, which lags all other regions in access to clean cooking fuels and technologies.

Limits of fiscal support

By far the greatest barrier to achieving the United Nations’ goal of universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services by 2030 is financial. To overcome the financial barrier, governments have provided universal price subsidies, and those for bottled gas remain prevalent in many developing countries.

But decades of such fiscal support show not only that universal price subsidies for bottled gas are highly regressive, benefitting the rich far more than the poor, but also that they are fiscally unaffordable and no country can hope to ‘subsidize its way out’ of the access problem. Recently, several governments have shifted from universal to targeted subsidies, thereby making them more progressive and limiting the fiscal burden, although with varying degrees of success.

These subsidy reforms faced new challenges as international prices rose steeply from late 2020 to mid-2022 while many countries’ currencies depreciated. As a result, several governments have reversed their reforms and brought back universal price subsidies—El Salvador and Peru among them. Where no subsidies are provided, retail prices have soared, as in Nigeria, where the cost of refilling gas cylinders doubled between August 2021 and June 2022.

What about densified pellets?

One way of avoiding the volatility of global fuel prices is to rely on advanced-combustion stoves burning densified pellets using locally sourced biomass. If operated as designed and maintained properly, these stoves slash emissions of harmful pollutants. Advanced-combustion stoves may therefore hold the best promise, particularly for rural households.

To reap the full benefits, some work remains. Where end-users are largely households, achieving requisite economies of scale for cost-effective pellet production calls for widespread adoption combined with regular use. To avoid excessive emissions of pollutants, it is imperative to use the right start-up materials and pellets of the correct size. Reloading pellets during cooking and letting the ashes smolder afterwards can also increase emissions significantly.

Component failure, especially of batteries, is not uncommon, increasing emissions and requiring repairs or replacement that can be costly. Automating the initial ignition and continuous pellet feeding will add to the cost but control pollutant emissions more effectively. More efforts are needed to resolve these problems for stove adoption at scale.

Using only clean fuels and technologies

To protect health, households need to abandon polluting practices. There is ample evidence that this is much more difficult to achieve than adoption of clean energy. Abandonment is also difficult to measure, as a result of which tracking of progress toward universal access collects data on primary energy use but not abandonment. Fuel stacking—whereby households that have adopted clean fuels and technologies continue to cook with kerosene, charcoal, wood, and other solid fuels—is common even among the rich in many developing countries.

A recent study of sub-Saharan African households that cite bottled gas as their primary cooking fuel finds, unsurprisingly, that abandonment occurs among the better off. These ‘abandoning households’ also tend to be smaller than fuel-stacking households that retain polluting fuels. These findings might suggest that cooking exclusively with bottled gas is easier when preparing small meals.

But the observed pattern cannot be simplified to ‘the smaller the household, the more likely to abandon’. The average size of the fuel-stacking households in the top 20% of income groups was smaller than the average size of the abandoning households in the next 20%—despite the abandoning households being poorer. That is, reasons other than purely financial seem to explain who abandons and who stacks polluting fuels.

Aside from personal and cultural preferences, one possible explanation is the state of the market, including the reliability of supply, the ease and transaction cost of refilling cylinders, and the degree of commercial malpractices in the market, such as rampant underfilling.

Conclusion

A critical policy challenge is how to promote adoption of clean fuels and technologies, and, over time, abandonment of polluting energy practices. Universal price subsidies are not cost-effective even for adoption because the rich consume far more energy than the poor. Because abandonment occurs primarily among the better off, government subsidies would be even less equitable and cost-effective.

By contrast, anything that can lower the effective prices paid by consumers and make fuel purchase more convenient—setting stove efficiency standards and enforcing them, setting penalties for underfilling sufficiently high and collecting them fully so as to make it not worth attempting, and creating healthy and fair competition in the market—will help to accelerate progress toward universal access and abandonment without incurring large fiscal costs.

For those cooking with biomass, when high combustion efficiency—which reduces pollutant emissions—is combined with high heat transfer, households use less fuel while protecting health, thereby lessening both the financial and health burdens of cooking. Because the markets for advanced-combustion stoves are still in their infancy, some government support may be helpful. In providing assistance, lessons from past government support for household energy point to the importance of carefully considering fiscal sustainability and avoiding economic distortions.

The post Clean, convenient, and fiscally equitable: household energy for cooking appeared first on Globaldev Blog.

A high level of poverty and a low level of women’s economic empowerment are two of the common economic and social features of developing countries. Efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals 1 (no poverty) and 5 (gender equality) have advocated for several measures to reduce poverty and empower women. These include improving access to microcredit – loans provided to low-income households and small and micro business enterprises.

Empirical studies are yet to document conclusively that microcredit reduces poverty and increases women’s empowerment. Indeed, some research questions its effectiveness. One study finds no difference in outcomes for health, education, and women’s economic empowerment, while another finds no significant changes in poverty. Similarly, research on Uganda and China finds little to no evidence of the poverty-reducing effects of microfinance.

However, studies such as this one and a second article here provide evidence that microcredit does increase women’s empowerment. An example of the poverty-reducing effect of microcredit is provided here. A recent systematic review of microfinance in sub-Saharan Africa suggests that evidence for the impact of microcredit on poverty and economic empowerment outcomes depends on the choice of methodology and context of the study.

The positive evidence is not as clear-cut as might be expected. For example, one study finds that microfinance led women to switch from agriculture to non-agricultural activities, and provided short-term gains. But for longer-term gains (two years or more), income, savings, consumption, and other wellbeing indicators did not significantly increase. Another study finds that the effects are strong and remain until six years, but decline thereafter.

One recent study does not find significant effects of microfinance on business profits, revenue, and household assets from research on eight randomized control trials. But combining all eight studies does show significant effects of microfinance.

In our study we explore the effects of microcredit on women’s economic empowerment and poverty. The study was based on a survey of randomly sampled female clients of a microfinance company and women who have never borrowed from a formal institution before, systematically sampled from the Savannah and Northern regions of Ghana. Our study adds to the body of work on the impact of microcredit on both poverty and women’s economic empowerment by providing evidence and adapting more recent methods from econometric evaluation.

The sample consisted of 411 women who were clients of a microfinance company (forming the ‘treatment’ group) and 541 women who had never borrowed from a formal financial institution (forming the main ‘control’ group). To ensure similarity of our comparison groups and rule out differences between the treatment and control groups due to unobserved differences, we compared women with one loan cycle to those with no loans, and with two to three loans, and the latter were compared with women with four or more loan cycles.

Microcredit and women’s economic empowerment

We obtained indices for power, agency, and economic advancement to provide a measure of women’s economic empowerment. We found relatively higher women’s empowerment among the company’s clients. In some cases, women with a higher number of loans had relatively higher empowerment indices compared with those with a lower number of loans. The clients with loans had relatively better empowerment outcomes compared with the control respondents

Figure 1 summarizes the results. The prominent result is the difference between clients who have borrowed once and women who have not borrowed before. We find that for several indices – share of household spending; social capital; personal autonomy; agency or decision-making at home; use of phone and technology in business; and decision-making in business and business practice – the women with one loan cycle did better than women with no loans.

Figure 1: Results of women’s economic empowerment

Microcredit and poverty

We also found a relatively lower level of poverty among the company’s clients after controlling for household, district, and individual characteristics compared with the control group.

Both the Poverty Probability Index (PPI) poverty rates and consumption per capita expenditures indicate that those who received a loan had a lower level of poverty compared with those who did not. We reached the same conclusion regarding clients with more loans compared with those with fewer loans.

As shown in Figure 2, women with one loan cycle experienced a reduction in both ‘extreme poverty’ and ‘poverty’ compared with women with no loans. The result is similar in the comparison of women with four or more loan cycles and women with two to three loan cycles.

Figure 2: Comparing poverty between the various groups

Key insights from focus group discussions

Five narratives from our focus group conversations with the women are that:

• The microfinance company’s clients feel economically empowered.
• Access to loans reduces violence at home for the clients.
• Responsibilities at home negatively affect running a business (a view shared by both the treatment and control groups).
• Larger households spend profits and loans on consumption.
• Borrowing from family and friends only meets basic needs (a view shared by both the treatment and control groups).

Our conversations suggest that the microfinance services benefit women via several different channels and in several different ways. For some households the increased capacity to consume was the greatest impact. For example, an older woman explained that the loan allowed her to meet family emergencies, while others indicated that it helped them to purchase business assets.

In addition, economic empowerment from loans resulted in fewer financial disagreements at home with male spouses. Loans reduced the financial burden on men, creating more peace and reducing violence at home. One woman suggested that some of the violence was due to requesting money from the men, so being able to cater for the kids and oneself without asking the spouse for money led to fewer disagreements and violence.

Most participants agreed that home responsibilities constrained their ability to run their businesses effectively. Having to prepare meals for the family and carrying out other household chores limited the time  they had to attend to customers.

In some cases, the size of households directly affected the ability of clients to reinvest the profits back into their businesses. The larger households required more resources to meet household needs.

Nonetheless, the loans were important in improving their livelihoods and the profitability of their businesses. In large households, the loans and any increase in profits leaked into household consumption rather than increasing the women’s investments or being used to expand their businesses.

Conclusion

Our evidence suggests that microfinance loans can empower women to take control of their household and business spending choices. To some extent, the loans can contribute to improving poverty outcomes and allow women to consume relatively more items at home.

Based on empirical evidence, poor households tend to be larger than non-poor households on average. One key implication of this is that due to several large households relying on microfinance, they end up spending borrowed money on family emergencies and consumption rather than family business expansions.

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Girls’ education is a driving force for economic development, geopolitical stability, and progress on climate change, as evidenced in research by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the World Bank. Achieving better access and quality of girls’ secondary education in Uganda is a priority across the sector. But there is a disconnect between this aspiration and delivery: girls’ secondary education is not guaranteed and is a complex deliverable.

Secondary education is particularly challenging in terms of enrolment and access, especially among girls. Evidence shows that girls systematically fall behind in terms of school completion, educational attainment, and literacy levels. Less than 30% of adolescent girls complete lower secondary education in Uganda.

Furthermore, negative stereotypes hold girls back from education as cultural expectations of how girls are treated and raised, at home, at school, and in their communities, persist. This translates into how they are taught in the classroom, where evidence suggests that teachers traditionally have lower expectations and biases against female students.

Girls’ access to quality secondary education is linked to lower fertility rates and higher levels of female participation in society. Supporting girls to complete secondary education and achieve their full potential in educational attainment, and preparing them to be productive members of society requires gender-sensitive, participatory, and context-driven solutions.

Central to ensuring this delivery is consideration of the evidence around girls’ education and keeping it central to all program phases – planning, design, delivery, and monitoring. Several pieces of evidence show what works in practice.

Gender-responsive pedagogy

Global evidence highlights the important role of school leaders and teachers in improving educational outcomes for girls, by creating the right environment for learning. Building their capacity in instructional leadership for quality, equitable pedagogy is at the centre of this role.

But there are continued barriers to school leaders being able to fulfill this role. The Uganda National Strategy for Girls’ Education is an exciting step towards a cohesive approach to supporting girls in education and demonstrates the government’s commitment. Our experience shows that it can be challenging for school leaders to translate this into specific targets or outcomes, which can hamper implementation.

Training in specifically gender-responsive instructional leadership and school improvement planning is a critical driver for empowering teachers to support their female students. At secondary schools that are part of Promoting Equality in African Schools (PEAS), strong leadership is associated with an increase in test scores of up to 10 percentage points. It has also been shown that a key aspect of PEAS’ high quality school leadership is leaders’ understanding of individual student learning targets and that this strongly correlates with faster progress in learning.

When teachers are trained and supported to use learner-centered, gender-transformative teaching methods, there is consistent evidence of a change in the behaviors and attitudes of girls and boys in the classroom. Examples include asking girls and boys questions with the same level of difficulty, inviting girls and boys to participate in equal measure, and challenging widespread cultural bias about gendered roles and abilities.

This contrasts with the teacher-centered approach found historically in Ugandan schools. In the FCDO Girls’ Education Challenge evaluation at PEAS schools, 96% of girls who felt welcomed by their teachers envisioned completing school, whereas only 82% of girls who did not feel welcomed by their teachers at comparison schools envisioned completing secondary education.

Girls’ clubs

In addition to creating and delivering a gender-sensitive curriculum and pedagogy, enriching girls’ social and practical skills outside academia is important for their education and futures beyond formal schooling. These skills include building healthy relationships, dealing with stress and anxiety, and planning for the future. This is especially important after the negative impact of school closures: the increasing rate of teenage pregnancies as a result of Covid-19 is likely to intensify the gender gap for a whole generation, and demonstrates the crucial role of secondary education in reducing gender inequality (Mo Ibrahim Foundation).

One way in which soft skills can be successfully delivered is through girls’ clubs – dedicated spaces and groups in school that create a safe environment for all learners to explore their interests, learn about menstrual health and hygiene, and confide in teachers. There is robust evidence that clubs in a variety of settings can have positive impacts on girls’ life skills.

Girls’ clubs may also mitigate future negative impacts on enrolment and attendance caused by school closures, which is now more important than ever as high numbers of girls have been dropping out. This is particularly crucial in Uganda, where schools were closed for two years, the longest period anywhere in the world.

One mechanism identified in Sierra Leone reveals evidence that by providing girls with a club where they may continue to learn and maintain their social networks, they may be more able to avoid or delay pregnancy. While there is a place for targeted and well-planned interventions to tackle specific gendered barriers to education, evidence shows that interventions that deliver benefits for girls alone may lead to unintended consequences and increased divisions between girls and boys.

General interventions bring added value to boys and are just as effective at delivering high impact for girls as girl-focused interventions. This means embedding safeguarding, infrastructure, pedagogy, and life skills school-wide.

Girls’ clubs are also a central part of the PEAS model. The clubs are student-led to encourage more open discussion, as research has shown the effectiveness of this peer-to-peer model. Boys also participate in the clubs, to help change attitudes at the school and community level. In the evaluation carried out by the FCDO in 2019, teachers linked girls’ clubs to increased girls’ confidence.

Female role models drive girls’ attainment and successful post-school transitions             

Evidence suggests that girls’ clubs and empowerment programs can help to shift gender norms, attitudes, and practices by increasing girls’ self-confidence, encouraging them to express their views. Exposure to female leaders as role models improves opinions of female students towards themselves and other girls and women, and weakens gender stereotypes about roles and norms. Research from Brookings also suggests that female role models meaningfully increase parents’ aspirations for their daughters and adolescent girls’ aspirations for their own education and careers.

Experience with role models also exposes learners to many useful life skills outside the classroom, and is an important strategy for the empowerment of adolescent girls that enables them to take control of their education. Skills development equips girls with the knowledge necessary to navigate adolescence, relationships, and the world of finance and savings.

Findings from the PEAS program highlight that girls are motivated to enroll and stay in school if they have female role models, and that this is reflected in the appointment of senior women teachers in PEAS schools. Evidence shows that engaging with the senior women teachers in PEAS schools leads to a 264% increase in girls’ chances of developing reading and writing skills.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored some of the key components in providing access to education for girls. Prioritizing girls’ education and embedding systems such as the ones explored above into business as usual are crucial for long-lasting change. Making education work better for girls improves results for boys too. When girls are learning, everybody wins.

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The rapid adoption of digital technologies in product design and development, automation and robotics in manufacturing, and the rise of digital marketplaces, such as Amazon, have been touted as pathways for women’s empowerment. But while digitalization offers significant potential for promoting women’s labor market participation, the benefits are neither automatic nor homogenous. Emerging evidence suggests that digital technologies affect women’s work in complex and diverse ways.

Consider the case of garments manufacturing. Some tasks, such as cutting material, are easier to automate than others, such as stitching, which indicates that automation may displace workers in some tasks but create employment opportunities in others. For example, the deployment of modern cutting lasers in the A-Z garment factory in Tanzania displaced workers engaged in cutting, but the productivity gains in this area of operations led to greater output, creating jobs in the next stage of stitching, which requires relatively more skill and is largely dominated by women.

New jobs in the garments value chain may also be created, for example, in the operation and maintenance of computer-controlled equipment and in occupations related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). But women in the Global South are less likely to get these jobs since they continue to lag in analytical and information and communications technologies (ICT) skills, and in social and leadership skills. Workers displaced by automation in developing economies also find it more difficult to move into new jobs elsewhere in the economy than workers in developed economies.

The adoption of digital technologies by ‘lead firms’ – those that set the parameters of production in global value chains – can further reconfigure entire value chains. Levi’s, for example, has invested in digital imaging and automation of finishing tasks in its jeans. While higher-value-added activities such as designing have remained with lead firms​, the subsequent increase in cost competitiveness and the growing demand for mass customizable production may lead to Levi’s bringing its other manufacturing tasks that had been offshored closer to home in the United States.

This phenomenon of ‘reshoring’ could lead to manufacturing job losses for workers in the Global South, disproportionately affecting women in low-skill and routine tasks. Increasing automation in lead garment firms may also have a ‘backstopping effect’, whereby suppliers in developing countries lower wages to remain competitive.

Similarly, in the ‘business process outsourcing’ (BPO) sector, lead firms are adopting digital technologies, such as chatbots and ‘robotic process automation’ – technologies that make it easier to deploy and manage software robots to imitate human interactions with digital systems. There are reports of multinational firms reshoring BPO activities, including the UK’s Virgin Media and Australia’s Telstra and Optus operating in India and the Philippines, while Whirlpool has reshored 400 call centre jobs back to the United States.

BPO jobs held by women that are intensive in routine or repetitive tasks are at higher risk of being automated. For example, chatbots are automating low-end repetitive jobs in call centers, which may disproportionately affect women workers, particularly in call centers where their ‘feminine social skills’ are considered an asset.

Proposed global rules on digital trade: a further entrenchment of gender inequalities?

In parallel to the rapid adoption of digital technologies in economic systems, some countries are negotiating global rules on digital trade. In 2017, the 71 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) signed a joint statement on e-commerce, announcing their intent to ‘initiate exploratory work together toward future WTO negotiations on trade-related aspects of electronic commerce’.

The proposed e-commerce rules under this joint statement initiative (JSI) propagate a developed country agenda, which can compound the challenges faced by women workers in the Global South differently, necessitating a careful rethinking to prevent a further entrenchment of gender inequalities. For example, under the JSI, the United States is seeking a permanent moratorium on the imposition of customs duties on electronically transmitted products, such as music, software, and video games.

The potential tariff revenue loss from this ban in the period 2017–20 is estimated at $48 billion for developing countries, while the least developed countries (LDCs) have lost an estimated $8 billion. This weakening of the fiscal revenue base will put pressure on care-relevant infrastructure, such as social security nets, disproportionately affecting women, the majority of whom work in the informal economy.

The most effective gender equality policies tend to consist of various forms of positive discrimination in national regulation, such as the gender-sensitive domestic services initiatives in trade agreements. But in 80% of its existing trade agreements, the United States asks for national treatment for American e-commerce firms, and in over 70% of its trade agreements, it does not offer any special provision to facilitate access to e-commerce for micro, small and medium enterprises (in which women tend to be concentrated).

Moreover, the JSI seeks to ban governments from requiring any access to source codes/algorithmic disclosures from transnational digital corporations, such as Google, with no exceptions or special or differential treatment for developing countries or the LDCs. This will obstruct technology transfer, which is an important driver for the development of local digital industry and job creation in developing countries.

In addition, the use of algorithmic techniques in global digital marketplaces can end up unfairly excluding and marginalizing women-run small businesses and women workers in the Global South, including through exclusion from work opportunities or low pay.

For example, there is a gender skew in the delivery of ads on Facebook: the platform displays Domino’s advertisements for delivery jobs – traditionally done by male workers – to a higher fraction of men than Instacart jobs. A majority of women-led enterprises have also been disadvantaged in the data-based scoring processes of Amazon’s buy box algorithm.

Shaping inclusive labor market futures for women in the Global South

Gendered digital inequalities at all levels – from firms and policy-making to skills and education – risk leaving women behind without appropriate policy interventions. The digital divide faced by women in the Global South is five-staged and dynamic, manifesting in the form of access to technology, adoption of technology, participation in the ICT sector, dividends from participation, and technology-related rule-making.

There is a need for targeted digital connectivity policies and new investments in digital industrialization to open up opportunities for women’s entrepreneurship and participation in the digital economy.

National policies need to address gender inequalities in digital access through communal public funds dedicated to expanding internet connectivity. Higher enrolments of women in STEM, as well as technical and vocational education and training, will help to increase the exposure of women to technology from an earlier stage, and promote meaningful representation in national ICT ministries and global rule-making.

Similarly, decisions to automate production at the firm level need to incorporate women in decision-making, while gender-sensitive training in firms can ensure that women workers are equipped to take up new jobs created by digitalization.

National digital trade policy frameworks need to retain policy space to navigate issues on customs duties, data flows, data localization, and source-code sharing. The freedom to impose customs duties on imported digital products could be an important channel through which developing countries can raise taxes, which could then be spent on other priorities. Having the right to access algorithms can enable governments in developing countries to protect the economic and social future of women workers.

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Clean cooking technologies can play a significant role in improving the lives of India’s poor, particularly women. Indoor air pollution, primarily caused by cooking with solid fuels, was responsible for more than 600,000 deaths in the country in 2019. The burden of cooking, collecting firewood and biomass, and other domestic labor mainly falls on women. India’s first nationally representative Time Use Survey in 2019 confirmed that women do an average of five hours of unpaid domestic labor every day (three times as much as men).

Over the past decade, India has made significant progress in providing access to clean cooking technologies, notably cooking stoves that use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The flagship Pradhan Mantri Ujwal Yojana (PMUY) program, launched in 2017, has provided around 90 million subsidized LPG connections (an LPG stove and a starter LPG cylinder) to poor households, and it had helped to achieve nearly universal LPG access by 2020.

The Government of India’s policies have focused on providing the necessary institutional and physical infrastructure to promote clean cooking. But is this enough?

A survey by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in 2020 found that 28% of rural India exclusively uses LPG, and 52% combine or ‘stack’ it with fuels like firewood, charcoal, and other biomass to various degrees. The 2021 National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) shows that only 45% of rural India mainly use clean cooking technologies.

Clean cooking technologies have a direct bearing on the time, health, and labor borne by women, and they only affect the rest of the household by extension. Cost, availability, and affordability are the most important drivers of the use of these technologies. Adoption and consistent use of clean cooking technologies primarily rests on, and is driven by women and their agency.

Here, we argue that policies designed to promote use of clean fuel will be more effective if they also take account of key factors that empower women. Neglecting this sufficient condition has resulted in only partial or short-term success of India’s clean fuel policies. Education and awareness, financial independence, and women’s autonomy around household spending are some of the issues that are crucial for consistent use of clean cooking technologies.

What have women got to do with cooking (fuel)!?

Rural India continues to depend on solid fuels due to two interconnected factors that have women at the center: the high refilling costs of clean fue, and ‘freely’ available solid fuels such as firewood and cow dung. In India’s patriarchal society, most decisions of a monetary nature are a man’s prerogative. The CEEW survey found that 63% of rural woman do not take part in household decision-making about whether and when to refill an LPG cylinder.

First, refilling LPG cylinders is a costly affair for many rural households. The price of an LPG cylinder increased from about 581 to 1,000 rupees between May 2020 and May 2022. That is often 12–14% of total monthly household expenditure of poor households, and this is reflected in its usage.

In addition, in May 2020, early in the Covid-19 pandemic and recession, the Indian government withdrew all LPG subsidies, although it paid for three free LPG cylinders for PMUY households in 2020. A recent Right to Information request revealed that nine million poor PMUY households never returned for a refill after the LPG connection was received. Another ten million bought exactly one refill in 2020 (whereas between seven and nine cylinders are needed annually if LPG is used exclusively ).

Second, as clean cooking becomes more costly, in the absence of women’s bargaining power, their wellbeing is sacrificed for other household necessities. Households often either cut down on or totally abandon LPG, and increasingly depend on solid fuels such as firewood and dung.

Rural women spend long hours in collecting, preparing, storing, and maintaining cooking fuel, not to mention the arduous task of cooking with them. This is made possible due to the free labor of women. The opportunity cost of their time – that is, its next best use – is low.

Households with women engaged in yearlong paid employment activities show a higher incidence of clean fuel usage than households where women don’t work. According to the 2014/15 NFHS, 44% of households with working women and 37% of households with non-working women used clean cooking fuel. Only 13% of rural women were engaged in yearlong paid employment activities.

These two interconnected factors – the decision to refill an LPG cylinder versus using solid fuels – depend on a woman’s status in the household economy and the bargaining power she holds over the family finances and her time.

Women who are financially independent, those who are able to make decisions about household purchases, and those who are engaged in employment activities increase the households’ chances of choosing clean cooking fuels.

At the same time, the effect of women’s agency on fuel choice is contingent on gender relations, such as how much husbands trust their wives to manage money, as well as cultural constraints dictating freedom of movement outside their homes to the village markets or beyond.

What needs to be done?

Sustained use of relatively expensive clean cooking technologies requires subsidies for poorer households. Graded subsidies, or targeted subsidies for below poverty line households (especially PMUY households), might be required for the initial years of use to encourage a behavioral shift towards increased LPG usage. The subsidy burden can be shared with India’s states and the health ministry.

Clean fuel policies must also be linked with other development programs that address women’s empowerment. Schemes to promote women’s health, girls’ education, and women’s employment could be ways to fund, promote, and educate people about clean cooking processes. Incentives for increased usage of clean cooking technologies could also be created by connecting it to health insurance policies and scholarships that target girl students.

At the same time, the state should create a system to insulate women’s choice of clean fuel from varying socio-cultural settings, gender relationships, and economic inequalities.

In the wake of high fuel costs or if households fall on hard times, women’s agency, and their choices to spend money on clean cooking fuel could meet with significant resistance. Allocating a lump sum amount for even subsidized LPG cylinders might be difficult in some cases.

A micro-payment scheme, accessed and managed by small groups of women (akin to self-help groups), for the clean cooking fuel program could be helpful. It would reduce the burden of high refilling costs, and help to build a social setting that promotes clean fuel.

Induction cooking stoves also become competitive when the LPG price is as high as 1,000 rupees a cylinder. Research shows that the usage of LPG and uptake of induction stoves increase when health and financial information is provided to households.

Improving women’s agency – their awareness of the benefits of clean cooking fuel and programs that facilitate their access, bargaining power, and ability to spend on clean fuel – is the key to smokeless kitchens.

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