Ulaanbaatar 2013

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Mongolia Compact Gender Summary Report: Best Practices And Lessons Learned9 ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT PROJECTEnergy efficient stoves are benefitting womenThe Compact beneficiary, Norovkhand, a single mother of 3 and one grandchild, shared herexperiences as a beneficiary of the new stove. She has been already saving on coal compared with thetraditional stove that she had before the project interventions. Most importantly, the energy efficientstove, she said, makes her routine housework much easier, for the energy efficient stove requires lessfueling, generates less ash and is easy to clean.“It is very affordable and accessible, especially for single women like us,” said Norovkhand. Herfamily is also one of the potential beneficiaries of hashaa plot privatization activity under the PropertyRights Project.9.1 IntroductionThe objective of the EEP project is increasing wealth and productivity through greater fuel useefficiency and decreasing health costs resulting from air pollution in <strong>Ulaanbaatar</strong>, the capital city. TheEnergy and Environment Project consists of three activities: (i) the Millennium Challenge EnergyEfficiency Innovation Facility (MCEEIF), which provided consumer subsidies for the purchase ofenergy efficient technologies and homes and technical assistance in assessing the viability of suchtechnologies; (ii) the wind power electricity generation activity (Wind Activity), which provided anoperational subsidy to the state-owned transmission company, critical infrastructure upgrades for theintroduction of renewable energy into the national grid, and technical assistance for the establishmentof the renewable energy fund; and (iii) a public awareness campaign, to increase consumer awarenessof renewable energy, energy efficiency, benefits, timeliness and availability of subsidies, and theidentity of participating partners.Especially considering that EEP is a market-driven project, it has had tremendous success with genderintegration. This may be partly attributed to the level of social awareness and commitment of itscontractors (such as XacBank 10 and Solidlinks LLC) which was responsible for implementation. Thepublic awareness programs they undertook were done according to contract, but are more likely to bedue to the high level of subsidy provided to a product that is traditionally most used and needed byfemales.9.2 Key issues identified:During the GIP review and planning process the challenges that were identified are:‣ Potential for difficulties on repayments,‣ female-headed households or households under the poverty line might be unable to benefitequally if they cannot afford energy efficient products,‣ barriers to borrowing for poor households,9.3 Issues identified during the 2012 GIP ReviewThe percentage of women and female-headed households taking loans is higher than their share of thepopulation, which indicates a high degree of success in reaching this group. However, while thesenumbers are important, it would be even better to understand the dynamics. It is not yet fully10As the Subsidy Transfer Agent for the Clean Air Project, XacBank strove to include the poorest andhouseholds in the ger districts by offering the most affordable and flexible consumer loan product thebank has to offer.42Page 42 of 80
Mongolia Compact Gender Summary Report: Best Practices And Lessons Learnedunderstood why nearly 40% of loan clients are female-headed households and what lessons can belearned from this project about meeting social and gender needs in Mongolia within the context of amarket-led initiative. The influence of the high subsidy level and which level of subsidy is appropriatefor encouraging equity, are to be studied.9.4 Key accomplishments in integrating genderEEP was one of the few projects that benefitted from SGA input from the early design stage. This wasdue to the fact that the project was introduced into the Compact at a later stage, following re-scopingand cancellation of another activity. As such, it was possible to integrate gender considerations earlyon.The project design included development of a Framework Environmental and Social Assessment(FESA). This assessment included gender analysis.During the process of the FESA, a concern was identified that subsidies would not be accessible bythe poorest, where female-headed households are disproportionally represented. The high level of thesubsidy (70% on average) that was ultimately offered in fact ensured a high representation of femalesamong the beneficiaries. 11 A further concern was raised that novice borrowers may be self-excludedby insecurity, lack of knowledge about loan and bank processes. This category appeared likely toinclude poor and female-headed households.Therefore, the suggestions were made to work with the banks to integrate gender in two ways into thework of the subsidy component. The subsidy itself was the first crucial part to enable access to thepoorest segment of the population.The first was through establishing baseline information, disaggregated by sex, about current bankingknowledge, practice and attitudes. As a follow-up of this recommendation, contractor banks started tocollect basic demographic data on a monthly basis, of all clients who purchased energy efficientproducts, including: gender of client, gender of head of household, age of client, income level, andnumber of family members in the household, number of years living in <strong>Ulaanbaatar</strong>, the capital city.Overall, 58.2% of the clients were male, and 40.2% were female (see figures below). Female-headedhouseholds benefitting from the program constitute 29% of the total, compared to being between 15%and 25% in the population as a whole. This indicates that the program very successfully included suchhouseholds.Interestingly, it has been found that compared to the total population of clients, loan recipients weremore likely to be female and from female-headed households (beneficiaries could elect to make apurchase with cash or via loan payments). As shown below, 46% of loan clients were female, ascompared to 40% of the overall client base; while 38% were from female-headed households, ascompared to 29% of all clients. Comparing clients with overall statistics of female-headed householdsdemonstrates that the project overall was effective in reaching these typically underservedpopulations.11 There are number of energy efficient products with different subsidy levels, with 70% being the average. Forinstance there is 80% of subsidy for “Ulzii Stove” while 65% is the subsidy for another stove.Page 43 of 8043
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