As Farms Dry Up, Kenyan Women Switch to Clean Energy Businesses
Perched on a stool in a tin shed, Nyawira Njau carefully lines the top of a dozen cookstoves with aluminium foil. A call on her mobile interrupts her concentration, and she answers with one word: "Tomorrow".
"That was an order for 20 cookstoves to deliver in Murang'a County," she explained. Making and delivering cookstoves in this central Kenyan region has been Njau's job for the past year.
Unusually long drought has caused fields and soil to dry up around Nyeri, forcing men to take on seasonal work as road or construction builders. The burden of maintaining the household with few resources falls on women like Njau, who must look for other sources of income than farming.
A growing number of them are setting up clean energy businesses, such as selling cookstoves that burn less firewood than traditional stoves, as an alternative livelihood.
Peter Kapuscinski / World Bank