David Edwards
Beyond the Environmental Debate: A Study of Project Drivers for Mbaula Improved Cookstoves in Rural Malawi
Over two billion people in the developing world burn biomass from declining forest resources for their energy needs. The associated Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) causes 1.8 million deaths each year. Encouraging sustainable local enterprise in producing and selling fuel efficient Improved Cookstoves (ICS) is seen as addressing both the environmental and health problems and providing increased local livelihood opportunities. However the success of ICS projects is largely confined to urban and peri-urban areas where a financial incentive is derived from buying less fuel. In rural areas where fuel-wood is collected for free, projects have met with almost no success. This study assesses the viability and impact of rural ICS projects by examining a contemporary case study from Northern Malawi. Using rapid ethnographic, participatory and more structured techniques the study triangulates a local perspective that contradicts the ICS project’s environmental rationale, revealing it to be both inaccurate and misleading, and persisting chiefly due to the incomplete nature of local participation, particularly the lack of proper consultation with local women. Labour saving and reduction in smoke from ICS are shown to be appealing but the resultant health benefits are as yet unrecognised by the local medical profession and thus underdeveloped as a driver for local behaviour and priorities. This study suggests that increasing this understanding could substantially reduce the local disease burden especially infant mortality, but accepts that ICS will not be driven by such concerns without greater empowerment and dialogue with local women and a radical change to local culture.
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