Bangkok (UNIS/ESCAP Information Services) – Efforts to develop gender- and poverty-sensitive energy policies in Asia and the Pacific received a boost today when experts and policy makers joined together to create a regional forum to help provide women and the poor with reliable access to energy.
The Policy Innovation Forum was officially launched by the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy (ENERGIA), in cooperation with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), at the conclusion of a two-day meeting today in Bangkok, entitled High Level Regional Policy Meeting on Networking Towards Gender and Poverty Sensitive Energy Policies
The creation of the Forum is the result of concerns that progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals will be hampered – or even reversed – as a result of lack of energy supply in many rural areas in the region coupled with the food, fuel and financial crises. The Forum will push forward with new approaches that will lead to pro-poor and pro-women energy policies and programmes.
“The aim is help achieve affordable and equitable access to clean energy services essential to the social and economic integration of the poor and women into the mainstream of development in Asia-Pacific developing countries – and this Forum is a major step in that direction,” said Shigeru Mochida, ESCAP’s Deputy Executive Secretary.
The group of experts and policy makers making up the Forum membership will gradually be expanded to include other important actors at the national and regional levels.
“It would function as a community of practitioners and also serve as a lobbying force to push forward its messages,” said Shelia Oparaocha, ENERGIA’s International Coordinator. “Information will be shared, synergies will be strengthened, and joint projects will be developed.”
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