The Power Of Dung ; Lessons learned from on-farm biodigester programs in Africa
World Bank Group
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Abstract: The share of households that cook primarily with wood, charcoal, coal, crop waste, or dung accounts for over one-half of the developing world?s population. This share is currently increasing or stagnant in most regions. Dependence on solid fuels, potentially harmful modern fuels such as kerosene, and inefficient and polluting cookstoves is one of the world?s major public health challenges, causing more premature deaths than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. The use of solid fuels and stoves also imposes significant economic costs on societies that can least afford them and contributes to adverse environmental and climate change effects (ESMAP 2015). While in past years the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and partners increased efforts to invest in improved cookstove technologies, growing evidence acknowledges that many of even the ?improved? cookstoves on the market have little effect on improving health outcomes (Lambe and Ochieng 2015). Recent evidence shows that truly clean stoves provide both reduction of fuelwood used (less deforestation) and improved health impacts (reduction of indoor air pollution), and these stoves are primarily those that use gas or electricity.