CAMBODIA—The Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) will bring clean and efficient cookstoves to Cambodia this year. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) will support the initiative.
The use of improved cookstoves can save fuel and dramatically reduce exposure to cookstove smoke. These problems widely trouble the world’s poor. SNV also hopes to expand to Vietnam and Laos.
The United Nations Foundation launched the GACC in 2010, and it comprises over 1,000 partners. This innovative public-private partnership promotes the use of clean and efficient cookstoves in developing countries.
The partnership’s mission is to improve livelihoods, save lives, protect the environment and empower women. They plan on doing this by creating a thriving global market for efficient and clean household cooking solutions. In addition, the GACC has an ambitious 10-year goal: to put clean cookstoves in 100 million households by 2020.
Exposure to cookstove smoke causes four million premature deaths annually. In fact, it is the fourth worst overall health risk factor in the world. However, they remain the primary means of cooking for nearly three billion people in the developing world.
Traditional cookstoves are also an important contributor to climate change at the regional and global level. In addition, they contribute more than 20 percent of global black carbon emissions.
In an interview with The Cambodia Daily, Jason Steele, SNV’s regional program manager, says “The Stove Auction” will target a different demographic. “We will likely see more of the first adopters being more of the middle income, or higher parts of the poorer strata,” Steele also said.
SNV would begin auctioning off “aspirational” multi-fuel stoves to wholesalers in March. The stoves cost between $25 and $100.
Steele explained that a fund created by the German Development Agency and Energizing Development would cover the difference in price if wholesalers offer prices for the clean cookstoves lower than what SNV agreed on with the manufacturers.
“What’s driving it is fuel savings, having a more modern kitchen and also the health aspect, and also ease of use.”
The GACC has distributed more than 3 million cookstoves to Cambodia. In 2014, GACC reported that 28 million households in developing countries had adopted clean and/or efficient cookstoves.
– Alexis Pierce
Photo: Flickr