There are over 900 million people worldwide who still lack access to electricity or other modern forms of energy. For the first time in nearly a decade, 2020 saw an increase in the number of people without access to energy as the COVID-19 pandemic dismantled years of steady progress, particularly in Southern Africa.
Women bear the brunt of energy poverty worldwide. Without access to clean electricity, women spend more time collecting firewood, have less access to healthier fuel for cooking, experience greater danger due to lack of lighting, and have less economic opportunity. Women in many places are being left out of the transition to a clean energy economy due to barriers in access to education, finance, career advancement, and political power.
The Shine Campaign is working to change this. Launched by Wallace Global Fund in collaboration with Sustainable Energy for All, GreenFaith, the Ikea Foundation, and the Mott Foundation, the campaign aims to accelerate support, funding, and investment for clean, distributed energy solutions for the world’s most marginalized communities. The campaign prioritizes locally owned, community- and women-led initiatives, ensuring that these vital, under-supported initiatives get the resources they need to scale. And the campaign works to lift up the fierce climate and women’s movement leaders who are at the forefront of solutions that connect climate action with gender justice.
Small-scale and distributed renewable energy systems offer a way to move past fossil fuel development and provide women with access to clean, modern and sustainable energy. The COVID-19 pandemic further proved the value of decentralized energy systems, as we learned how access to vaccines and medication for rural communities is so contingent on adequate energy and refrigeration. To respond to the pandemic, the Shine Campaign’s Council of Women Leaders in Energy Access launched a COVID-19 recovery fund. The fund provided support to energy access initiatives that are locally rooted and women-led, and provided immediate economic relief to women-led businesses reeling from the pandemic.
The campaign has already proven successful at bridging the fights for fossil fuel divestment and energy access. Shine partnered with a number of organizations from 350 Africa to GreenFaith International to convene a ‘Financing the Future Summit’ in Cape Town South Africa in 2019, where over 300 community leaders built connections between divestment, energy access, climate justice, and gender justice.
“It is exciting to see donors, governments, and philanthropists pledge and commit such eye-popping financial resources for clean, renewable energy,” said Everjoice Win, the Executive Director of the Shine Campaign. “Our question at Shine is, will these funds go towards massive-scale, shiny projects that concentrate power and ownership at the level of the wealthy elite, or will they support locally relevant and transformative projects which women and last mile communities want and need?”