Improved Cookstoves in Refugee Areas User Centered Design Approach in Ethiopia
Introduction
Energy Solutions for Displacement Settings (SUNESDS) is a component of the Global Programme Support to UNHCR in facilitating the operationalisation of the Global Compact on Refugees in the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus (SUN), which is commissioned b the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
SUN-ESDS Ethiopia is actively engaged in providing training, technical know-how, and material support to local cookstove producers. The aim is to develop UCD cookstoves that reduce emissions, environmental impact (including deforestation), and health hazards like indoor air pollution, especially among women and children in displacement settings and host communities in the Gambela region. Local producers are collaborating with retailers in refugee camps to distribute these improved cookstoves, with an aim for achieving higher adoption and satisfaction rates from consumers as well as better income generation for the producers.
Challenges
Firewood is the primary source of energy for cooking. At the national level, 83% of households, in 2022, depended on firewood for cooking, up from 78% in 2019. Households in rural areas used firewood at a much higher rate than households in urban areas (96% versus 59%)1. Women and girls especially are burdened with its collection. Limited electricity access and free availability of firewood has kept the rate of deforestation in rural areas higher in recent years.
Access to improved cooking solutions is expected to increase in the coming years but biomass resource based traditional cooking is still expected to dominate the energy mix2. Transitioning to improved and cleaner forms of cooking will require not only increased availability, and affordability of solutions, it requires as well meeting the needs of the end consumers.
Approach
The most common approach in cooking energy solutions is to produce or procure stoves with the highest fuel-saving values without consulting the users. If the selected stove model does not cater to the users’ cooking needs, the stoves are unlikely to be utilized. However, the UCD approach prioritizes the cooking habits and needs of the users alongside efficiency and emission reduction. This guideline facilitates meeting the anticipated paradigm shift.
SUN-ESDS Ethiopia focuses on market development and capacity building of local and public stakeholders via the following mechanisms:
- Training for producers to improve their technical, business, and marketing skills.
- Technology development by improving stove designs that meet the requirements of the end users. Integrating consumers in the technology development process (UCD).
- Promotion of the private sector to facilitate local production of UCD-based stoves.
- Awareness generation through public demonstrations.
- Cost reduction within supply chains and creation of access for clean and efficient cooking stove alternatives.
- Conducting efficiency assessments of stoves to ensure high-quality products.
Way Forward on the UCD Approach
Before a cooking energy system is used it needs to reach the users. Shorter value chains with production closer to the users can react better to changing user needs and increase adoption through a refined product that people want to use. Shorter value chains can be scaled easily on a sustained basis with less resources compared to lengthy procurement processes for costly imported products. Involving skilled UCD experts in all steps along the value chain can minimise involvement of humanitarian or development agencies in future operations. The chances that value chains can be sustained over time normally increase if more steps from production, distribution and operation of the outlets can be operated through private and local businesses. The aim is that the value chain can eventually function on a sustainable market-based approach.
A detailed list of recommendations and risks involved can be referred to in the study here.
