Reducing the gap between projects and policies: a comparative analysis of the "butanisation" programme in Senegal and the Multifunctional Platform (MFP) experience in Mali

Over the last ten years the number of projects mainstreaming gender and energy has steadily increased. Improvements have been made and milestones passed, while the issue has gained in visibility and outreach. Nevertheless, the incidence of energy poverty is still such that many gender and energy initiatives, particularly "stand-alone" projects, have made little difference to the lives of millions of poor women and men across Africa[1] 1 The number of gender and energy projects has increased in the past ten years. In a study published by the UNDP [Karlsson, 2001] these projects are highlighted in full detail. Other projects such as the experience of solar dryers in Niger with the drying of beef "kilichi" and fruits and the dissemination of improved stoves in Senegal, such as those locally dubbed Ban ak Suuf and Fourneau Jambarr, and many other projects show the diversity of projects but also their limitations in terms of their impacts on the lives of rural, urban and peri-urban women. . This study will closely examine two projects in West Africa, one with a particular stress on gender, the other conducted with little or no gender emphasis. Both the Multifunctional Platform (MFP) and the "butanisation" programme have been devised in the context of socio-economic realities and have the aim of bringing about changes that would diversify energy consumption patterns and help reduce poverty. The paper explains why both projects have been successful in their own right and examines how good supporting policy, well-thought-out training and capacity-building could help in replicating such stories and create a much bigger impact on the lives of rural and peri-urban women. The experience of the "butanisation" programme in Senegal bears witness to the (amended) adage "Where there is 'political' will there is a way". Likewise, the MFP has changed village dynamics and given women, whose roles and status have hitherto been invisible, the opportunity to become owners and managers of an apparatus that provides energy services, and has huge positive time- and cost-saving implications as well as provides a potential source of income. Constraints and limitations experienced in both projects will be highlighted and a number of critical interventions proposed that will translate the energies exerted at conferences into real implementation on the ground. © 2004 International Energy Initiative, Inc.