Urban households energy transition pathways: A gendered perspective regarding Mozambique

Abstract

The challenges to attain the 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals, particularly universal access to modern and clean energy, persist in urban households. This paper examines energy transition pathways for urban households in the least developed countries. Although the literature extensively discusses transition pathways in the global north, a knowledge gap on gendered energy transition pathways exists in the global south. Further, the debates seldom take a holistic perspective considering location-specific context and not merely decarbonisation. Using an integrative literature review, this paper addresses this gap by developing gendered energy transition pathways for a least developed country. The research applies the developed framework in the Mozambique case study. The results highlight three groups of energy transition enablers: (i) market rules, (ii) government, and (iii) civil society. The analysis reveals that the degree to which these groups intervene and interact results in business-as-usual, differentiated or disruptive transition pathways. This paper finds that government leadership can foster modern energy uptake and mainstream gender into national energy strategies and policy. This approach can improve households’ well-being, especially for women who culturally perform the most energy-intensive services at the household level. While the government-led path is the most appropriate for the least developed countries, there is a need to implement risk assessment of the pathways considering location-specific evaluation and monitor the impact that each has on achieving the fifth sustainable development goal.