Abstract:

Fuel wood provides 89% of cooking energy for rural households in Kenya. Generally, women are responsible for the supply of the resource but households experience high levels of scarcity estimated at 57%. This study quantified the degree to which women were allowed by their husbands to participate in tree/shrub decision-making, planting, harvesting and marketing, and the effect of their participation on household fuelwood availability in the highly populated Vihiga and Kirinyaga Counties of Kenya. A total of 180 randomly sampled households were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire in 1998 and repeated in 2012. The results show that, in Vihiga, over 63% and 76% of the women in 1998 and 2012 respectively were allowed to make tree/shrub resource decisions. In Kirinyaga, the proportion was 54% and 84% for 1998 and 2012 respectively. However, for technical, economic, and cultural reasons, very few women participate in harvesting and marketing of the same. The limited scal...