Responding to "Poor People's Energy Outlook 2014"

I enjoyed reading this article. While I had a general idea about energy poverty in developing countries, the detail and specific examples of how technology can impact the lives of billions of people was illuminating. What first came to my mind was how gender roles and the family structure can be impacted by changing technology, specifically among women and children. Most of what is commonly assumed to by "women's work", i.e. cooking, cleaning, laundry, maintaining the home, is dependent on heat. Women particularly spend long hours of the day using inefficient, rudimentary appliances to accomplish these tasks, and not only are they risking their health, they are potentially severely limited in their freedom. Of course, we shouldn't presume that other nations should be upholding the gender roles we see in the United States, but I found it interesting to imagine how the lives of women and children could change with better technology. Not only could more advanced stoves be safer, but they may dramatically cut back the amount of time and effort women must spend accomplishing daily tasks. Less time over the stove may mean that women are able to attend school, spend more time with their children, or work in more male-dominated areas to increase productivity. It may be a stretch to say that better cooking and heating technology could have feminist implications, but the hope is there.

Another area of the reading I found interesting was at the very end, with a call for more service-based assistance rather than just supply-based. The focus was certainly on the more long-term solutions to areas in need. It's easy to just spend a lot of money buying, for example, cell phones for a village in Africa. But, what good will those do for a region of people completely unaccustomed to our Western idea of "civilization"? A better strategy for humanitarian aid involves actually servicing the underserved, and taking time to teach people about new technological benefits. By personally working with a group to maximize resources in order to actually improve their lives, we might actually make a difference.