Who has power over policy? The political economy of Kenya's 2019 gender policy in energy access

Abstract

Addressing gendered energy poverty requires policies that ensure equal consideration for women and men. In order to close the gender gap in energy access, the Kenyan Ministry of Energy developed its 2019 Gender Policy. Unlike similar policies – such as ECOWAS's Policy for Gender Mainstreaming in Energy Access – Kenya's Gender Policy emerged from strong leadership by the Ministry of Energy, put clean cooking up front, and established an action plan to operationalize the Constitution's gender quota. To understand how these policy features appeared in the Kenyan context, this paper explores how the dynamics between actors working at the gender and energy nexus have impacted the development of the Gender Policy using the Actors, Objectives and Context political economy framework. We find that four major objectives drive the key actors: electricity access, economic opportunity, access to clean cooking technologies, and gender equality. Examining how these objectives are realized in the Policy, we find a convergence of top-down government efforts to uphold constitutional rights to gender equality and bottom-up advocacy from civil society to prioritize clean cooking and women's access to energy services.