Loads on their heads, hips or backs, women do most of the fetching and carrying for the family — firewood, water and doing the marketing — often over long distances and harsh terrain. How can they shed this burden?

Alejandra has seen the landscape changing around her village in Peru's high sierra. Today there are hardly any old 'native' trees left, and the eucalyptus trees that were planted as part of a reafforestation scheme about twenty years ago are dwindling. Not only are no new trees planted, but the commerciantes (traders) come frequently and buy whole trees for about one US dollar to sell to the many restaurants and bakeries desperate for firewood in the nearby town of Cusco.

Women in many parts of the world face a daily energy crisis. Will they find enough wood today? Can they afford to buy some charcoal? Is there enough fodder to feed the oxen so that they can draw the plough? For most of the rural poor in the Third World, apart from the judicious use of batteries or kerosene, energy means four things: human power, beasts of burden, the sun and biomass (wood, dung, crop residues and so on). The advantage of these is that they don't require money, but the people and animals do need resources, such as time and food.

There is a limit to what human muscles can do. Draught animals greatly enhance rural productivity, but they need to be fed even when they are not being used at work. The sun is a fickle friend; now shining on crops to make them grow, and then burning their fresh green shoots to cinders on the earth. For these reasons wood and charcoal have become the mainstay fuel for nearly half the people in the world.¹

But wood is in short supply. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that by the end of this century, close to three billion people will be living in areas of acute fuelwood shortage.² The knock-on effects of this reverberate around families in poor regions, and deal women the hardest blow.

Under an enormous bundle of sticks, a woman walks slowly back to the village. She is tired; it has taken her most of the day to gather this amount of wood. Women in many parts of the world frequently carry weights up to 80 lbs and as a result suffer from back and head pains as well as hurting themselves in falls. One report from Bangladesh, for example, reveals that half the broken back cases being treated were the result of falls while carrying heavy head-loads.³

But at least the woman is gathering enough wood for the moment, although it is taking more and more time. In parts of Nepal, 11 days a month are spent gathering wood. Ghanaian women may have to spend one whole day collecting a supply to last three days. Journeys of more than 25 kilometres are common in Niger, while in Gujerat, India, collecting wood takes up to three hours a day.⁴

Almost all of this is used for cooking and heating at home. The household sector in the Third World is still the single largest energy consumer, if wood fuels are counted in the energy balance along with sources such as coal and hydro-electricity. And the poorer the country, the more it depends on this source.⁵

The dwindling supplies of firewood have affected the urban poor, too, as prices shoot up. Some families are using between a fifth and a third of their income for fuel.⁶ Scarcity of wood for cooking may drive women to use food that cooks quickly; longer cooking pulses, their chief source of protein, may be bypassed. Or they may substitute fuel from animal dung and agricultural residues like grain stalks. Doing this however means these are no longer available to fertilise the soil and so crop yields fall.⁷

Other sources of energy exist, of course. There is now six times more electric power in developing countries than there was 20 years ago, according to the Worldwatch Institute.⁸ But to keep pace with demand, the World Bank estimates that these countries would have to invest $60 billion every year in electricity generating plants — more money than the Third World receives in aid each year.⁹ And while it would make women's lives easier simply to flick on a switch for cooking, heating or lighting, electricity is not cheap. In towns it can cost up to $300 per household for connection alone, and in the countryside this sum can climb as high as $4,000.

A survey in India shows that 69 per cent of villages are plugged in to an electrical supply, but only 20 per cent of households have taken advantage of the service.¹⁰ The reason is simple: poor people cannot afford it. The only energy most people can afford, apart from their own labour, is what nature provides and that usually means the scrubby plants and straggling trees around their homes.

In 1980 wood provided 56 per cent of the energy needs of developing countries. That figure is set to go down to 45 per cent by the end of the century as other sources, especially wind, geothermal and solar power become more widely available.¹¹ But clearly wood is still the fuel of the future, and so the trees and woodlots must be cared for today.

As the main consumers of this fuel, women are well placed to be its guardians. It is in their interest to protect forests from being cleared. But once trees are cut down reafforestation will not be easy. However many have recognised the importance of the link between women and fuelwood. Reafforestation projects are now encouraging the involvement of women who start the seedbeds and tend the young plants.¹²

Asking women about the forest may surprise or even upset the local hierarchy. But women are the best resource, the repository of information about nature around them. They have accumulated 'knowledge about indigenous trees, medicinal and herbal use of leaves and roots, as well as constraints on the introduction of new species,' notes Gloria Scott, World Bank advisor on women and development.¹³ Tapping into this pool of information can save time, money — and bring a clash of interests. For when woodlots are used up, replacing trees is by no means straightforward.

Land tenure systems for instance can affect firewood supply. If local women are denied entry into those areas, they cannot gather what they need. And in cases where the landlord cannot refuse access, the free-ranging scavenging of wood may make the owner decide not to replant with trees or bushes at all.

What kind of trees should be planted? 'Fruit trees' shouted the men in Gopeshwar, India (home of the Chipko movement — see the story. From Tiny Seedlings). The women resisted: 'No — the men will take the fruits and sell them by the roadside. The money will only go to buy liquor and tobacco. We want trees for fuel and fodder.' In this case, both types of trees were planted, but this was only because the Chipko movement women have grown strong enough to have their views respected.¹⁴

Cooking fuel, naturally is a concern closer to women than to men. If women are expected to provide the fuel for the community, it is essential that their requirements for cooking fuel be taken into account. Here is the tale of a community biogas plant in an Indian village which illustrates the point. Biogas is fuel produced from manure and vegetation through a process of fermentation, and it has been used in India since 1939 to make more efficient use of cattle dung as fuel. So what happened in the village of Fateh Singh Ka Purwa in Uttar Pradesh?

The community biogas plant served the cooking needs of every household in the village. 'Technologically, it was a great success,' explains Anil Agarwal, director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi. 'But socially, it was a failure.' To operate, the plant required cow dung which was provided by the women. For a year, everything went well. Then the interest gradually declined; dung was not brought and the gas flow fell. 'When interviewed,' comments Agarwal, 'community leaders, who were invariably men, pointed out that the "community" was more interested in energy to power irrigation pumps, chaff cutters and milling machines (that is, energy that men generally deal with) than with cooking energy.'¹⁶ And although women were the ones who collected the dung, use of the biogas was controlled by the men. So the women went back to gathering sticks and branches.

The example of Fateh Singh Ka Purwa gives pause for thought about how women's energy needs — for cooking, say — can be harnessed to a wider use. If technologies involving fuel for women are restricted to purely domestic purposes, then the technologies become part of the process of confining women to the home and continued economic dependence on men. While saving women hours of drudgery collecting firewood and so forth is useful and necessary, it should not be an end in itself if women are to change their lives.

The most appropriate ways of helping them obtain fuel, conserve energy and transport their loads should also ideally be methods which give them the opportunity to earn money.

In a small farming village in the mountains of Colombia, for instance, the community has set up a small hydro-electric system which gives electricity for home use. The villagers were enthusiastic, but poorer members did not have enough money to put into the scheme. To get round this, the community came up with the idea of using the electricity to power a sawmill as well and used the income from this to help cover the cost of installing the hydro-electric plant.¹⁷ Another example is a cooking stove which uses less fuel, which does not emit eye-stinging smoke and noxious fumes and so makes a woman's life more pleasant. But if the stove can be adapted, or a communal one constructed which allows her and her neighbours to smoke fish for sale in the market for instance, then new horizons begin to open up.¹⁸

Part of this 'holistic' approach — the wider view — involves transport. Water, fuel and goods to sell have to be carried somehow. Every culture has its means of hauling loads. For women it is on the head, hip or back, or sometimes in carts fashioned out of wheelbarrows and scrap vehicles. If it's not traditionally their work, men may only transport things on the introduction of some mechanical aid such as a bicycle.^{19 20}

Journeys to market in rural areas can be arduous, negotiating rough terrain and weaving along poor roads. It is often the women who do this work, especially in West Africa where estimates suggest that four out of every five women engage in marketing. In eastern and southern Africa, and in parts of Latin America the picture is the same.²¹ Improvements to roads are helpful though not especially useful if a woman has no cart or bicycle to use on them. 'Carrying heavy loads along a road may be better than struggling along a rough track, but only marginally so,' says economist Marilyn Carr.²²

In Latin America and Asia, some non-mechanised vehicles are to be found, such as a tricycle-cart. But in Africa there are very few alternatives to head-loading (on top of the head or carrying on the back by means of a strap around the head), and then walking or using conventional transport such as a lorry or bus — often few and far between in rural areas. Nigerian women in a recent survey²³ cited lack of adequate transport facilities as the major constraint on increasing their productivity.

The absence of transport in many regions also means that women may not be able to convey a sick member of their family — or themselves — to the nearest clinic. Transport and energy are areas where women's needs may be different from men's. 'Treating the poor as one monolithic entity is a mistake,' says Anil Agarwal. 'There are two distinct groups: men and women — and the interests of the one are not necessarily served when those of the other, or even of the whole community, are being catered for.'²⁴

Women know what they need. But often they do not know what is available, and as they are rarely consulted in any plans, the results can be counter-productive. In Africa for example, where sunshine is abundant but fuel for cooking is not, a solar stove seemed a good idea. But what planners overlooked was that meals there are prepared in the morning before sunrise or in the evening when the sun has gone down. That custom apart, the women were not enthusiastic about stirring pots in the scorching sun, energy saving or no.²⁵

On the other hand women in Burkina Faso welcomed the introduction of donkey carts which were handy and saved time in the long process of stocking up on wood to last them throughout the rainy season.²⁶ And in Kenya, a group of women took their transport problem by the scruff of the neck. In despair of ever getting their produce to market using the overcrowded and haphazard bus service, they bought a bus themselves — and then set up a whole public transport system.²⁷

Notes

1. Eckholm, E.'UNICEF and Household Fuels', in UNICEF News, Issue 117/1983/3, p.4.
2. ibid.
3. Carr, M. 'The Long Walk Home', in Appropriate Technology, vol.10, no.1, June 1983, p. 17.
4. Eckholm, E. op. cit.
5. 'Energy and Rural Women's Work', in Women's World, no.10, July 1986, p.44.
6. Eckholm, E. op. cit.
7. Scott, G. 'Forestry Projects: How Women Can Help — and Help Themselves', in Appropriate Technology, vol.9, no.3, December 1982, p.13.
8. Worldwatch Institute figure cited in UNICEF News, Issue 117/1983/3, p.10.
9. Burne, S., Carr, M. and Holland, R. 'Energy for Rural Development: No Simple Answers to a Very Complex Question', in Appropriate Technology, vol.13, no.2, September 1986, p.2.
10. ibid.
11. Worldwatch Institute figure cited in UNICEF News, Issue 117/1983/3.
12. Scott, G. op. cit.
13. ibid.
14. Agarwal, A. and Anand, A. 'Ask the Women Who Do the Work', in New Scientist, 4 November 1982, p.302.
15. ibid.
16. ibid.
17. Sandhu, R. and Sandler, J. (Eds.) The Tech and Tools Book: A Guide to Technologies Women Are Using Worldwide. Intermediate Technology Publications and International Women's Tribune Centre, London: New York, 1986, p.53.
18. ibid.
19. Balcomb, J. 'Technology: "Appropriate" for What and for Whom?', in UNICEF News, Issue 117/1983/3, p.6.
20. McSweeney, B. 'Time to Learn for Women in Upper Volta', in Appropriate Technology, vol.9, no.3, December 1982, p.28.
21. Carr, M. op. cit., p. 18.
22. ibid.
23. Adeyokunnu, T. Women and Agriculture in Nigeria. ATRCW, Addis Ababa, 1981.
24. Agarwal, A. 'Try Asking the Women First', in UNICEF News, Issue 117/1983/3, p.22.
25. Women in Food-For-Work. World Food Programme 1979, Rome, pp.27-32.
26. McSweeney, B. op. cit., p.28.
27. Kneerim, J. 'Village Women Organise: the Mraru Bus Service', in SEEDS, New York, 1980.