Towards Improved Synergies: Women, Natural Resource Based Livelihoods and Renewable Energy in Arizona and Zacatecas

This CAZMEX funded project, initiated in August 2017, is assessing, as well as comparing and contrasting, the specific energy needs of women in and near semi-arid cities and rural communities in the states of Arizona and Zacatecas (Mexico) and how renewable energy projects in these locations can become better integrated into gendered livelihood systems. The study sites in Arizona include Tucson, where rooftop and parking lot solar panels are ubiquitous and rural communities in the Cascabel-Benson area where a recently constructed large wind and solar farm is located; in Zacatecas the sites include several peri-urban and rural communities where recently installed wind farms are located. The Arizona-based team will travel to the sites in Zacatecas in September 2017 and the Mexico team will visit the Arizona sites in early 2018. The study findings will inform policy prescriptions disseminated to policymakers and planners via policy briefs and a project website linked to both the University of Arizona and the Colegio de Postgraduados and disseminated to academics via journal publications and conference presentations. The principal investigators are Dr. Stephanie Buechler of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and the School of Geography and Development (SGD) of the University of Arizona working with research assistants Cecy Cuevas and Karina Martinez, graduate students in the Master’s in Development Practice Program of SGD and Dr. Verónica Vázquez García, of the Rural Development Program of the Colegio de Postgraduados, Montecillo, Mexico working with research assistant Dulce María Sosa, research consultant based in Zacatecas, Mexico.