When Clementia Wurenabi has to cook, she leaves her hut and crosses the yard to a small shed. It’s dark inside; the walls are blackened with soot. There are three stones in a corner. She lays small branches in the central cavity, places a pot on the stones and lights the fire. The room immediately fills with smoke. The Kenyan mother of six starts coughing and her eyes water. Cooking is agony. Like her, three million people around the globe cook their food on open fireplaces or inefficient stoves. And for fuel they rely on wood, plant remains or dung. People who cook like Clementia Wurenabi inhale as many harmful substances as a chain smoker. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.6 million people die each year as a result of this cooking style. In other words, cooking causes more deaths than malaria.
The use of biomass has additional hazards. Every day more than three million tonnes of firewood is burnt beneath pots and pans. In many African regions wood is becoming scarce. To gain an impression of the fuel crisis you just have to walk up the hill behind Clementia Wurenabi’s house. The landscape is beautifully green. But the woods have vanished. Consequently, it takes Clementia Wurenabi far more time to look for firewood, and this means less time for her children and for productive work, or she has to buy the fuel. Inefficient cooking prolongs poverty, and the many millions of open fireplaces also affect the climate. The burning of biomass creates 3% of worldwide CO2 emissions, and as much as 5% of methane gas emissions.
So, the way the world cooks is not just a question of taste. Modern cooking stoves can save lives, reduce poverty and protect the climate. For many years only development aid specialists knew about these effective appliances. But in September 2010 governments, organizations, companies and charitable foundations established the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. Now the initiative’s aim is to support the distribution of 100 million efficient stoves by 2020. Among others, the founders of the Global Alliance include the United Nations and numerous countries, including Germany.
The Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has been developing and distributing stoves in Africa and Latin America on behalf of the German government for almost thirty years. This knowledge and experience is now flowing into the initiative. “It’s important that we bundle our specialist expertise and our financial means, because distributing stoves is a complex task,” says Marlis Kees of the GIZ. Urban inhabitants cook differently from people in rural areas. Geography, climate and foodstuffs shape regional cooking cultures. The type of stoves people use depends on their purchasing power and their ability to adapt to modern technologies. Women in particular first need convincing about the advantages of changing to the new cooking technology. As Marlis Kees stresses, “The kitchen is steeped in tradition.” The art of cooking is passed on from generation to generation. You can only achieve change by taking cooking traditions and behaviours into account.
Numerous projects failed to achieve their goal, because they used inappropriate technologies, such as solar stoves, or because they distributed appliances free of charge. “Poor women want modern, user-friendly cooking technology, too,” says Marlis Kees. And they are also prepared to pay for it. That’s why the GIZ is focusing on increasing the formation of local and regional markets for modern cooking stoves. A functioning market can ensure the supply of modern stoves without the need for development aid. With this in mind, the GIZ adapts modern stove designs to local conditions, provides enterprises with this know-how, joins forces with partner institutions to train potential stove producers, and carries out information and education campaigns.
Kenya is a good example of these activities. “We urgently need new stoves. Not just for health reasons, but also to reduce the enormous level of wood consumption,” says Anna Ingwe, head of the GIZ stove programme in Nairobi. Efficient stoves are not necessarily expensive – technology is the key. The GIZ uses the technology developed by former NASA engineer Larry Winiarski. The combustion chamber and design of the so-called Rocket Stove are state-of-the-art. The combustion chamber is made of fired clay. The remaining components can be made either of clay or metal.
Depending on the model, each stove can save between 40 and 60% of the firewood required. But the most important thing is that the stoves produce hardly any smoke. Nevertheless, technology alone is not enough. In a second step the people have to be convinced of the advantages. That’s why the project cooperates with ministries and NGOs, with churches and women’s groups, with plantations and sugar factories. The message is getting through, especially since the search for firewood is becoming more arduous, and wood prices are soaring. So people are open to new cooking technologies. “Since 2006 we have distributed 1.1 million stoves and each one was paid for by the customer,” says Anna Ingwe. This demand has also created a new market for enterprises and independent stove manufacturers.
The GIZ initiative in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Malawi is now being taken up by the newly created Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and developed on a worldwide basis. Instead of distributing stoves itself, the initiative wants to create the basic framework conditions by developing clean and efficient technologies, setting standards for stoves and creating financing models, for instance through microcredits or emissions trading. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves has already made its mark and placed the topic firmly on the international agenda. However, the real change has to take place in the many millions of traditional cooking sheds in Africa and elsewhere around the world. And the initiative in Kenya can find out how to convince women such as Clementia Wurenabi.////
