Clean Cooking in Nigeria

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This article is written by Charlotte Remteng, Muhammad Bello Suleiman, Chiamaka Maureen Asoegwu and Chysom Nnaemeka Emenyonu as part of the requirements for the Open Africa Power Fellowship Programme 2021. It is a sub-section of the publication, Country Project Nigeria.

Nigeria Energy Situation

Overview

Despite Nigeria's enormous wealth in energy resources, an estimated 84% of households lack access to quality cooking and lighting fuels. In addition, woodfuel is still the main source of energy for cooking and heating for 56% of the population, thus nearly 30 million households and more than 100 million Nigerians depend on wood as a source of fuel for cooking. With a high demand for wood fuel and an estimated 100 million m3 of firewood consumed annually, Nigeria has currently one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, at over 3.3% per year. (AfDB, 2014). Key statistics reveal that about 181,300,000 people (94%) primarily use fuels such as wood, charcoal, coal, and kerosene for cooking (WHO, 2016), and 64,000 deaths per year attributable to household air pollution (IHME, 2017). Percentage of wood fuel harvest that is unsustainable - 51% (Bailis et al., 2015). The current UNDP rating ranks Nigeria 10 in the world in terms of indoor pollution. This ranking is because most rural households still use solid cooking fuel (firewood) for their cooking. Smoke from open fire resulting in over 95,000 deaths annually; after Malaria and HIV/AIDS it is Nigeria's biggest killer.

Although other sources of cooking energy are used in Nigeria, including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene, and electricity, they are expensive compared to biomass, which is available at little or no cost. With over 60% of people earning less than $1 per day (Bello, M.A.and Roslan, A.H. 2010), biomass stands as the preferred source of household cooking energy in Nigeria. According to UNFCCC, women can be seen returning home in the evenings after a long day of fuel gathering, carrying enormous bundles of wood on their heads. In addition to wood, many Nigerian households depend on kerosene. But they suffer from condensate-laden kerosene that burns with high emissions of soot and particulate matter. Many thousands of people, mainly women, and children die every year from indoor air pollution in Nigeria. Respiratory problems, skin cancer, eye problems, food poisoning, and threats to women's safety result from overexposure to unhealthy cooking fuels. Below are the targets for domestic cooking energy.

Currently, only 1% of households in Nigeria cook with electricity. According to recent modeling by Mari Yetano Roche, no more than 2% of households will convert to electricity for cooking by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario. The reasons are obvious, as the per capita electricity consumption in Nigeria is still under 150kW. Table 9 below shows targets for domestic cooking energy.

Table 9:Targets for domestic cooking energy
2010 2020 2030
Share of population using improved cooking stoves in % 0.24% 40% 59%
Share of charcoal produced by efficient charcoal production technologies in % 2% 5% 7%
Use of modern fuel alternatives for cooking (e.g. LPG, biogas, solar cookers,

ethanol gel fuel, etc) - % of population*

97.66% 55% 34%

Source: National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAP) (2015 – 2030)


Efficient and Clean Cookstoves are the solutions to the problem above. They save lives, empower communities, improve health, combat climate change, etc. Despite the benefits of clean cookstoves, the market to supply them is undeveloped in Nigeria. This is a moment of great opportunity for the clean cooking sector. While experts have been working for decades on improving cookstoves and scaling up access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, only recently has this issue become a major priority on the global development agenda. The world has woken up to the serious health, environmental, and economic impacts of continued dependence on biomass for cooking. At the same time, rapid progress in technology and new financial mechanisms to support this sector has made real change possible. Access to clean cooking is also central to the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative, which is backed by a large and diverse global coalition of international organizations, the private sector, and civil society, and co-chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. The three overarching SE4ALL goals to be achieved by 2030 universal access to modern energy services, doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, and doubling the rate of improvement of energy efficiency have now been broadly accepted, including by 82 developing countries that have opted into SE4ALL. The result has been a large number of initiatives to help achieve universal access to clean cookstoves and cooking fuels by 2030 as part of the universal energy access goal.

Challenges affecting Adoption

At Local Level

Studies carried on Cross eight selected communities with the highest concentration of wood cook-stove users in River State in Nigeria’s rainforest and coastal region by Onyeneke et al. 2019 revealed the following challenges with the adoption of clean cooking;

- Women whose spouses were alive used the improved cook-stoves more than the women whose spouses were dead. This could be because women whose husbands are alive stand a better chance of receiving support and advice related to technology adoption/use than their counterparts whose husbands are dead.

- Age and household size significantly emerged as significant predictors of the use of improved cook-stove. While age yielded a significant negative impact on the use of improved cook-stove, household size affected its use positively. This implies that younger women used improved cook-stoves more than aged women, while women with a greater number of persons in their households to feed used improved cook-stoves more readily than their counterparts with a smaller number of persons in their households to feed.

- Income and access to credit significantly increased the uptake of locally designed improved cook-stoves in Cross River State. Though the locally designed cook-stoves are affordable, it requires a little cost to install a unit, and credit availability enhances the use of the technology.

- Forest areas controlled or managed by women yielded a significant and negative effect on the use of improved cook-stoves in the area. This implies that women controlling fewer forest areas used improved cook-stoves more than their counterparts controlling larger forest areas. Women that had/controlled larger forest area had a higher quantity of fuelwood at their disposal and may have considered fuelwood savings less important and less attractive. Also, the opportunity cost of labor in rural areas is usually low, and even when it is said that the improved cook-stoves are efficient by reducing cooking time and fuel collection time, the women do not appreciate this because they may not invest in the time saved in productive/income-generating activities.

- Accessible road(s) close to a woman's house significantly increased uptake of improved cook-stoves in Cross River State. One can infer that the women users lived close to accessible roads and were in an advantaged position to assess the market and easy transportation means to access improved cook-stoves. Membership of women's associations had a positive and significant impact on the use of improved cook-stoves. This is expected because many local entrepreneurs often work with cooperative societies, community-based associations, or faith-based organizations to reach members of such associations/organizations. Members of such organizations often get information about innovations/technologies/inventions from their organizations.

At Government Level

● Fragment, Conflicted, and Inconsistent Policies

They are fragments of policies that address clean cooking in several documents, but these often have conflicting targets and are not always coherent. Awareness of these policies is also low, giving the impression that they are not a top priority of the government. There is no lead agency responsible for clean-cooking policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria. Providing an institutional home for clean cooking will go a long way to address other barriers, including funding.

● No strong institution to champion clean cooking

● Lack of ownership of Improved Cooking System sector

● Capacity constraints among policymakers

● Inadequate financing

● Lack of education about the benefits of clean cookstoves,

● Weak government policies, weak supply chain, poor stove quality, limited choice, and insufficient access to finance.

Approaches for Adoption

  1. Policies and programs encouraging Clean cooking

Though there is yet to be a policy developed and adopted at the National level integrating clean cooking into national interventions to achieve SE4ALL 2030 goals of improved cookstove (Nigeria's SE4ALL Agenda, 2016), the Federal Ministry of Environment Renewable Energy Programme through its program the National Clean Cooking Scheme (NCCS) launched in September 2012 is currently working in partnership with pot-makers Tower and energy firm Envirofit through its Rural Women Energy Security (RUWES) program for the production and distribution nationwide of a purpose-designed bio-mass stove. To further strengthen the scheme, in 2014, the Federal Government approved the sum of NGN 9billion for the distribution of 750, 000 Clean Cook Stoves and 18,000 Wonder bags to Nigerians, in a bid to stop the depletion of forest resources caused by indiscriminate felling of trees. In five years, the NCCS aims to distribute at least four million clean cookstoves in each of the six geo-political zones and provide 20 million clean cookstoves throughout- the country. The scheme also seeks to reduce the persistent felling of trees which exposes the country to ecological problems including desertification. Similarly, in December 2014, the National Assembly Intervention on Clean Cooking Initiative (NAICCI) was also launched to National Assembly members to foster the adoption of clean cookstoves in their constituencies to positively impact the health of women who have to contend with respiratory infections and ailments due to indoor air pollution and smoke inhalation. Furthermore, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Nigeria, and governmental stakeholders and partners are working to enable 17.5 million households to adopt clean cookstoves and fuels by 2020. The Alliance enterprise development fund has also been created to provide Nigerian enterprises access to investment and financing opportunities thus, strengthening the production and distribution of clean cookstoves in the country. The Alliance's efforts have helped to develop a National Testing Center as a facility to test cookstoves and fuels while supporting a Nigerian Alliance for the sector, and the capacity of stakeholders in the value chain including SMEs, financial institutions, microcredit institutions, NGOs, CBOs, and Faith-Based Organizations to advance the country's clean cookstoves and fuels sectors. Finally, the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in partnership with the Alliance is working to bring in 100 new partners, including from the private sector, by the end of 2015 to further strengthen and support the distribution and marketing needs of the Nigerian clean cookstoves and fuels market.

Also, aligning clean cooking with important national interests where influential actors are affected is important.

Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

Launched in 2011, The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Alliance) is a public-private partnership hosted by the UN Foundation to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and protect the environment by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s 100 by ‘20 goal calls for 100 million households to adopt clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020. We are working with a strong network of public, private, and non-profit partners to help overcome the market barriers that currently impede the production, deployment, and use of clean cookstoves and fuels in developing countries.

Despite a challenging environment, Nigeria continues to see progress in supporting a more robust clean cooking sector, here are some of the accomplishments and activities so far:

● Nigerian enterprises have received both targeted funding support through Alliance enterprise development funds such as the Catalytic Small Grant, Spark, and Women's Empowerment Funds, and are accessing investment and financing opportunities as a result of Alliance partnerships-brokering with microfinance institutions.

● A National Testing Center to test cookstoves and fuels has been developed through Alliance efforts.

● In partnership with the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the Alliance is working to bring in new partners to further strengthen and support the distribution and marketing needs of the market.

● The Alliance has been in active discussions with the Ministry of Environment to support government incentives to increase the use of clean fuels such as LPG and ethanol for cooking.

● Awarded a grant from its Clean Cooking BCC Fund to carry out a large-scale behavior change communication intervention to motivate women in Nigeria to switch from kerosene to LPG for cooking.

● In addition, Nigerian Senate President and Alliance Leadership Council member Abubakar Bukola Saraki convened a meeting of sector stakeholders in October 2015 and announced plans to pursue legislation to expand access to clean cooking energy in the country

● A program to reduce dependency on firewood has been launched in Katsina State in partnership with the European Union, Oxfam, the International Center for Energy, Environment and Development, and the Alliance. The joint program provides support to women-owned enterprises and conducts business development training for local entrepreneurs on the production and marketing of a more consumer-friendly, fuel-efficient stove.

2. Awareness and Education

Awareness and education about new and improved cookstoves are still much done around urban areas order than rural areas. If Nigeria will achieve its 2030 goal there is a need for aggressive campaigns and public enlightenment for the application of improved cookstoves.

3. Data Collection on Demand and Supply

There is currently very limited data on the demand and supply of improved cookstoves in Nigeria. Database to showcase roadmap for reaching a wide range of rural and urban population is lacking and most especially it is not known yet what the ability to pay scenario looks at the moment especially in rural communities where the cost of wood fuel is close to zero as compared to improved methods associated with costs. The willingness to trade-off the current cooking method with a modern one is yet to be determined. When this is determined, demand and supply analysis can then be carried out.

4. Ensuring good Quality Clean Cooking tools

The quality and production of improved cookstove in the country are still very low. Very recently through the joint effort of the Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves (GACC), a test center was established in Ebonyi State-Nigeria. This facility though a welcome initiative is grossly insufficient to serve the Nigerian population and cookstove industry thus it can be concluded that to date clean cooking and modern improved solutions standard and efficiency testing facilities are inadequate and unaffordable by many local investors.

References

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