Training and integrating rural women into technology: a study of Renewable Energy Technology in Bangladesh

Abstract

Women in developing countries are often poorly integrated into new technology sectors, but technical and vocational training may be a means of empowering women to achieve such integration. This article addresses the challenges of integrating rural women in Bangladesh into the Solar Home System (SHS) value chain through training. It reviews a USAID-funded training project undertaken by Grameen Shakti (GS), a major Renewable Energy Technology (RET) enterprise in Bangladesh, and examines the outcomes for the rural women involved in the project. Over the period 2005–2010, the company trained 2797 rural women at an extensive network of rural technology centres. While GS reached its target of selling and installing one million SHS units throughout the country, it was less successful in integrating women trainees into the value chain, employing less than 3% of women trainees after training. These women employees assembled SHS components, but their jobs did not draw on their acquired skills in promotion, installation, and maintenance of the SHS. Of those not employed at GS, a proportion found income-generating activities elsewhere and felt they benefited from the training. This study reviews the training, gender segmentation in the value chain, and changes in technology and markets to help explain this outcome. Both cultural barriers and limits to project planning, monitoring, and implementation affected the outcome. Moreover, initiatives based on small-scale, village-level production appear vulnerable to mass production and rapidly changing market conditions.