Energy plays a vital role in poverty eradication
, economic growth, sustainable infrastructure development of any country. Women play an important role as agents of change. Bangladesh is not an exception. With remarkable progress in economic development and poverty alleviation, Bangladesh has already set a clear guiding path towards prosperity and human development. Development in power sector is still mostly treated as gender-neutral, based on the assumption that energy impacts men and women in similar ways leading to “gender-blind” initiatives. However, women and men often have distinct variation in relation to energy production and usage patterns. Bangladesh has met all the criteria to graduate to ‘Developing country’ from ‘low income country (LDC) status’ this year. It is also important that the development trajectory is sustainable through environmentally sound, equitable and economic provision of energy for the longer term. Development of a society, which is equally energy conscious and promotes responsible generation and use of energy is thus crucial.
Gender should be considered as ‘critical element’ towards designing that path and sustaining impact, since ‘women’ are the ‘key enabler’ in development of such a conducive society. The Webinar on “ Role of Women in Building an Energy Conscious Society”, which includes a panel discussion with national gender experts from academia, industry and the public sector will attempt to shed light on the rarely explored gender-energy nexus. Ms. Christine Lins, Executive Director, Global Women’s Network for Energy Transition (GWNET) will present the keynote address of the webinar.