and biofuel and climate policies (e.g., bio-energy plantations, CDM and REDD+ projects). All-in-all, this decreases the availability of land for woodfuel collection, often with adverse gender impacts.<sup>53</sup> And, because demand for energy is inelastic, adaptation to increased scarcity is costly for poor households in terms of e.g. increased time for collection, greater proportion of disposable income allocated for energy or decreased quality of fuel (Cooke et al, 2008). The Bank should support safeguards of local rights to woodfuel collection, or alternative means of energy supply, where largescale biofuel, REDD, or agricultural projects are implemented.

Access to woodfuel could be increased by inducing private supply of woodfuel, subsidize community investments, address institutional failures that counteract collective action on commons, and enable utilization of government land, e.g. through Joint Forest Management. Fundamental to any such intervention is the functioning of the tenure system. An energy-gender perspective on the land tenure and land administration reforms could therefore have profound effects on woodfuel supplies.

Private supply of woodfuels is increasing in importance. Shively (1998) pointed out the importance for the investment decision that prices remain high and risk is reduced. Secure private tenure rights can decrease risk and the devolution of _de facto_ open access government land to more efficient local management can keep woodfuel prices more stable. For women to benefit more effectively, such reforms would need to include specific rights to land and trees for wives and daughters (on par with husbands and sons). Women can also benefit from supplementary activities such as silvi-cultural training and micro-credits. Producer cooperatives have also increased the value added of forest owners.

Community and peri-urban plantations and community based forest management: plantations have lost some of its previous attraction to donors but can be expected to have a major revival as part of various carbon sequestration initiatives (Paquette and Messier 2010). This can be instrumental since the underlying problem in the mismanagement of most commons is under-investment (Swanson, 1992). Despite the academic leaps in understanding the functioning of CPR management, spearheaded by Ostrom, there is still much to learn about how external actors, such as governments and donors, can support a process that both leads to sustainable resource management and equitable distributions. Section 2.3.3. noted the importance to give particular emphasis to the representation of disadvantaged women in such management committees if their interests are to be taken into consideration.

Charcoal projects have the potential to reach also urban beneficiaries. The charcoal trade also gives rise to a large number of jobs. Charcoal is, however, not a very sustainable source of energy to invest in from a climate change perspective, as long as traditional kilns are used.

# **5.3 Increased access to improved cooking technologies**

**The Bank Group should facilitate tapping into carbon finance and technical assistance to promote improved cooking options. It should also consider a program of rigorous impact evaluations and participatory monitoring of household cooking and energy projects, as well as analytical work on the gender dimensions of political economy.**

> 53 For the book ―Rising Global interest in farmland‖ the World Bank made an in-depth inventory of large-scale land acquisitions in 19 countries. One of the findings was that ―[m]any of the projects studied had strong negative gender effects, either by directly affecting women‘s land-based livelihoods or, where common property resources were involved, by increasing the time required of women to gather water or firewood and take care of household food security. In many cases, it was presumed that land rights were in the name of men only, and consultations were limited to males in the community, leaving women without a voice. Bargaining power within the household was affected in unpredictable ways (Deininger and Byerlee, 2011:69-70).

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