Women collecting fuelwood
Women collecting fuelwood. Picture by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Energy and equality featured in award-winning Duke podcast

"Ways and Means" is a podcast produced by the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, that serves as a space to expose ideas on how to improve society in several areas. In a recent episode of the series, researchers from SETI talked about their research on improved cookstoves.

In the fourth episode of the series "Climate Change Solutions", Subhrendu Pattanayak, Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy, EfD Research Fellow, and a founder of the Sustainable Energy Transition Initiative, SETI, talked about cookstoves and the work he has done with his colleagues.

Upgraded cookstoves are highly beneficial

He talked about a research trip to rural Kenya. His team was invited into people's homes for a study on what it might take to make people change their methods and behavior, that is, on how upgrading cookstoves for people in developing countries could improve their lives while making a big contribution to fighting climate change.

Check the video on Twitter by clicking here!

Research for reducing social and gender inequalities.

Alongside researchers Ipsita Das, Thomas Klug, P. P. Krishnapriya, Victoria Plutshack, Rajah Saparapa, Stephanie Scott, Erin Sills, Njeri Kara, and Marc Jeuland, Pattanayak Subhrendu also reviewed more than 100 articles on women's empowerment and its connection with energy access from the empirical perspective.

Access to the article here!

Research, especially fieldwork, has shown major knowledge gaps that require further attention from researchers and practitioners, as well as deep inequality among the population regarding the necessary resources for a good living.

"Some are energy-rich, others energy-poor", commented SETI fellow P.P. Krishnapriya to Sanford Stories.  “Innovation can help improve health and the use of time for women and girls and empower them since they are the ones who do most of the cooking and collecting of wood while reducing the energy gap with cleaner cookstoves.”

The researchers highlighted how connected different research issues are. Co-author Victoria Plutshack, SETI fellow, said to Sanford Stories “The world remains far from meeting SDGs on gender equality and universal access to modern energy, and it is clear that these goals are interrelated".

Listen to the podcast by clicking here!

By Belén Pulgar.

News | 2 May 2023