Gender, electricity access, renewable energy consumption and energy efficiency

Access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy, and increase in women empowerment and participation in decision-making/politics are core to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN). The UN nevertheless emphasizes that without women in politics the attainment of the SDGs would seriously be endangered. We consider an aspect of this by examining the effect of women in politics (percentage of seats held by women in national parliaments) on access to electricity, renewable energy consumption and energy intensity (efficiency). Using data from 36 African countries and the System GMM, the results show that increase in seats held by women in national parliaments is positively associated with increase in access to electricity and energy efficiency. The effect of increasing women parliamentarians on renewable energy consumption, though positive, is only marginally significant. Considering that issues of energy in Africa are centered on politics and governance, we account for the interaction between quality of governance and women in politics. The results indicate that, generally, good governance moderates the effect of women in parliament on access to electricity, renewable energy consumption and energy efficiency. The results largely remain robust to sub-sample analyses and different measures of access to electricity and energy efficiency.