A fundamental reason why improved cookstoves aren’t more widely in use in Africa is that small and medium-sized energy businesses lack access to finance. Without investment or backing, small and medium-sized energy enterprises are staying just that: small.
April 2011
Photo essay: Of Haiti, charcoal, and energy poverty
We’ve focused before on Haiti‘s complete dependence on charcoal as a primary fuel and the impact this has had on the country’s environment.
The UK newspaper The Guardian recently ran a slideshow of powerful photos depicting aspects of the country’s charcoal trade.
The images are a profound reminder of the link between poverty, energy needs, and the environment.
NEWS: The case for combining water treatment & clean cookstoves
From WASHupdate: Combined Household Water Treatment and Indoor Air Pollution Projects in Urban Mambanda, Cameroon and Rural Nyanza, Kenya, 2011– WHO.
The positive experience from these two projects concerning the apparently clear benefits of delivering household water treatment and household energy interventions in an integrated way has important implications for future programs. Specifically, the key strategic question is whether integrated delivery should be the norm, rather than, as at present, the exception and only seen in a few innovative projects.
International Conference on Charcoal in 2012 gets thumbs up from Swiss government
The Tanzania office of Switzerland’s international development agency (SDC) gave Tuesday a shot in the arm to a proposed International Conference on Charcoal to be held in Africa in 2012. The SDC made a significant financial commitment to support the organization of the conference.
The SDC representatives in Tanzania have identified the country’s current level of production and consumption of charcoal as a priority area.
About 90 percent of the country’s energy needs are met by woodfuels. These figures are in keeping with average biomass consumption in sub-Saharan Africa. The annual consumption of more than 1 million tons of charcoal results in a loss of 130,000 to 150,000 hectares of forests and the emission of about 9 million tons of CO2. In Tanzania, on average, only one hectare of forest is replanted for every three hectares destroyed.
The recent spike in oil is sure to increase woodfuel and charcoal consumption above the current 10 percent growth rate, experts say, a situation that could potentially tip the country into a charcoal crisis.
UNEP: Unsustainable charcoal production & consumption threaten MDG achievements
We were very pleased to receive this morning a letter from the United Nations Environment Programme that recognizes the unsustainable nature of current levels of charcoal production and consumption in sub-Saharan Africa, and the threat this poses to the progress on the MDGs. The letter, signed by Mr. Mounkaila Goumandakoye, Director and Regional Representative of UNEP in Africa, also expresses the agency’s support for The Charcoal Project’s effort to organize the first International Conference on Charcoal, scheduled to take place in the first half of 2012 in Africa. Although we regret UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, will not be able Continue reading