QUESTIONS

 Distil the Central Information:

1. What is the central development issue of the Igniting Change Report?

The central development issue that is highlighted in the report is the unavailability of safe

cooking options in third world countries. The report highlights the massive health,

environment, and safety hazards that are generated through the traditional cooking

mechanism. This method involves the gathering of solid fuel materials and their burning on

open stoves. It damages the environment and health of the family because of persistent smoke

emission that is direct and lacks any filter. Similarly, the negative impacts of this method of

cooking can also affect the economics of these areas through high costs of environmental

degradation and fuel, causing more damage to already vulnerable communities. The report

tries to help us understand the difficulty in providing safe cooking stoves to third-world

families and the dedication and commitment of Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

(GACC) in this regard. The report looks into the international efforts of GACC to create a

sustainable production and consumption model for low cost but safe stoves in these

communities.

2. Why do you think the issue is important, especially for developing countries?

Around 3 billion people use traditional methods for cooking and fuel collection (Global

Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC), 2011. p 3). In many developing countries of Asia

and Africa, a considerable majority of the population has no access to modern cooking

mechanisms and sustainable fuel options like gas and LPG. The most population has to rely

on solid fuel sources like dry wood and coal to cook food. This problem, though look minor

from a western perspective, creates tremendous health, environment, and safety problems for
these vulnerable families. The hazardous effects of unsafe cooking stoves cause thousands of

deaths in the third world from diseases like Pneumonia, COPD, Lung Cancer, etc (Lewis et

al, 2012). The collective human cost of the unsafe cooking mechanism is more than Malaria

and HIV (GACC, 2011. p 5). Similarly, a considerable effect of this cooking mechanism is

generated on the environment. Burning of coal and dry wood creates toxicity in environment,

in and affects the whole world. To understand and strategize this issue is highly important to

improve the lives of millions of people in the global south and to protect the environment of

our world 

3. How can it lead to poverty reduction?

The report highlights two significant reasons that create an impact on poverty through unsafe

stoves (GACC, 2011. p 13).. First the families that reside in relatively urban areas have to

spend a high percentage of their income to buy solid fuel materials like coal and wood.

Because of their inability to access modern stoves and the scarcity of wood in urban areas,

thousands of poor urban families have to remain under significant poverty to provide for their

daily fuel needs. Secondly, in rural sectors of society, though solid fuel is cheaper but it

requires a lot of effort to gather these materials. The report gives an estimate of 20 hours a

week that an average person spends on gathering fuel, a time that can be used to earn and

thus reduce poverty. Once the fuel needs of these communities are addressed, through the

modern stove that is safe and cost-effective, they can be lifted out of extreme poverty by

working more extra time and spending less on fuel.

4. In what ways do traditional cookstoves contribute to climate change?

Traditional cookstoves impact the environment in two highly dangerous ways. Firstly, the

wood or any other solid fuel material that is collected to burn the traditional stove will often
destroy the natural ecosystem. This collection of material; includes deforestation and crop

burning that is highly dangerous for the environment. Secondly, smoke from these stoves that

includes harmful toxins goes into the air and create significant pollution. If three billion

people are using these methods we can create an e4sdtimate on how much of damage is being

done to the global environment

Gender-Related Questions:

5. What are the gender roles identified in this report?

The report highlights the marked gender roles in the global south where cooking and fuel

gathering have been left out completely to women and girls. Men and boys remain

completely isolated from any form of activity that takes place in the kitchen. Though men are

considered to be the provider of food in traditional Afro-Asian culture, the cooking of this

food including the provision of cooking material like coal and wood are completely

considered as the women's domain. These women and girls have to travel for miles to collect

heavy stacks of wood, maize, or coal to cook food. They are also the only one that has to get

exposed to the harmful smoke that comes out of traditional stoves. Thus the whole burden of

this labour intensive task have been assigned to women in almost all these communities.

6. Why does gender equality matter in this case?

Though the issue of unsafe and hazardous cooking means is something that creates wider and

long-lasting impacts on whole communities but the primary victim of the hazards that comes

with traditional cooking method is indeed women. The culture of most Asian and African
countries marks a clear boundary between designated gender roles. In these cultural

boundaries, women are solely limited to the upbringing of children and providing for

household chores like cooking. However, since men are usually unaware and to a certain

extend unconcerned about the problems that are related to the collection of solid fuel

materials and the smoke that is released through these traditional stoves, they are not

interested in creating any change in this structure. Unfortunately, like our western world. The

global south is also governed by an economic superstructure that is designed and controlled

by men. Thus, there are no significant efforts by producers and family patriarchs to find

solutions to these issues of fuel collection. If and only if gender equality has been increased,

more women will be able to come out for their demand for safe stoves and the replacement of

traditional fuel. This is a two-way process as unless women are not free to form the heavy

burden of collecting fuel every day they cannot fight for their equality and the change of

traditions that are against them but also if they do not rise they cannot get rid of traditional

duties imposed on them by men. Thus an outside intervention in the form of education

programs, financial crediting and basic training is necessary to solve this problem

7. How did Global Alliance for Clean Cook stoves bring about change in the lives of

women?

The fundamental problem in the lives of millions of women of Asia and Africa is their daily

struggle to cook and to find solid fuel material for cooking. These women have to go out

miles away from their homes to find these materials. This issue is creating multiple problems

for them, first, they are becoming vulnerable to sexual assault and other forms of gender-

based violence and secondly they have to face the health effects of constant smoke emission

from their traditional open stoves that are reducing their life expectancy. The Global Alliance

for Clean Cook stoves is solving this problem by creating a sustainable mechanism for the
production and supply of efficient and safe cooking stoves. The organization is helping

women in multiple ways; firstly it is generating investment for the production of low cost and

efficient stoves for women, secondly, they are working to create credit mechanisms and

awareness to generate demand for such stoves. Thirdly they are removing structural and

cultural barriers that restrict the usage of safe stoves and providing necessary guidance to all

women that need help in this regard (GACC, 2011. p 27-41)..

Application of a Conceptual Framework:

8. In what ways does this clean cook stoves initiative respond to the concept of Planetary

Boundaries?

The concept of planetary boundaries includes nine zones where human activities should be

controlled to effectively run the natural balance of Earth. The clean cook stoves initiative

deals directly with the two planetary boundary zones. The first and perhaps the most

important of them is the idea of climate change. The usage of traditional stoves by millions of

people creates a higher amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful chemicals that can affect

climate change (GACC, 2011. p 25). This means that replacing traditional stoves with

modern efficient stoves through the initiative will positively help in reducing the climate

change effect and help the human race to deal with this zone of the planetary boundary.

Similarly, the second effect of traditional stoves is also on chemical concentration in the

environment. Coal-burning and dry wood burning generates thousands of harmful substances

that can stay in the air and cause the air quality to deteriorate. This will affect our goal

towards this planetary boundary in the future. The replacement of traditional solid fuel-

burning with efficient and sustainable stoves will reduce this chemical flow in the air (Wolf

et al, 2017).

9. How might the Economic Doughnut be applied to this initiative?

The Economic Doughnut model is very helpful to understand the sustainability of human life

on Earth. In clean cook stoves initiatives, both the outer planetary boundary and the inner

social foundation will be affected by the change in cooking and fuel consumption

mechanism,. First, the social foundation criteria like food, education, and health will increase

as the lower spending of time and money on fuel will eventually help the families to spend

more money on their food requirements. Many girls are unable to go to schools because they

are required to collect dry wood with their mothers every day (GACC, 2011. p 12). Through

this initiative, they would be able to attend school. Similarly, multiple other social factors like

energy and gender equality will be directly affected by this change in a highly positive

manner

10. Identify how the internationally agreed development goals, the SDGs, are addressed

by this initiative.

This project addresses multiple Sustainable development goals (SDG) in this initiative. The

first SDG the initiative helps to accomplish is the reduction of global poverty. As mentioned

before, a considerable amount of money and labour efforts have been wasted in search of

fuel. With the provision of an effective stove, this amount will increase the income of

families and help in reducing poverty. Secondly, the most significant impact will be on the

SDG of health and well being. The most important and valuable difference this initiative will

create will be in the improvement in health of millions of women and the reduction in deaths

from respiratory disease like COPD and Lung Cancer. The next important SDG it will help to

achieve is gender equality. As the consequences of traditional hazardous stoves are directly

faced by women and they are the ones that are forced to spend hours in search of fuel

materials, the initiative will help to make their lives easier and provide them with enough

energy and time to get an education or to participate in social activities to improve the statu8s
as women in society. Fourthly it helps in accomplishing SDG of clean energy. The safe

stoves use far less dangerous solid fuel and create around 70% less emission of harmful

particles (Lewis et al 2012). Thus a majority of the population will eventually be moved to

clean energy. There are multiple under SDG’s like supporting vulnerable communities,

innovation and infrastructure, and provision of jobs to youth that the issue indirectly deals

with.

11. Which SDGs are not addressed by this initiative?

There are a total of 17 SDG’s provide by UN. No single initiative and encompass all the

promised 17 SDG’s (Gigs et al, 2013. However, this initiative does involve a large number of

sustainable developmental; goal tasks. Still many SDG’s like vaccination and political liberty

are beyond the scope of this initiative and are not addressed at all.

Evaluative questions:

12. Describe the engagement strategies and their rationale for the adoption of clean

cookstoves and fuels being suggested by the Global Alliance for Clean

Cookstoves initiative.

To ensure a smooth a sustainable project, engagement between multiple layers of government

and society is needed. Until an initiative includes a strategy to engage the local population it

can never be succeed in reality. To ensure this, a detailed plan has been made to use

interventions and support amongst local population and increase cooperation. The first part of

this strategy is to include the provision of clean and stoves in the greater government policy

objectives and in its long term strategy to ensure better health, education etc facilities for the

people. The most important thing in this regard is to take local leadership of communities in
perspective and create a mutual program with government to gain more social and financial

resource for the project (GACC, 2011. p 46).

Secondly, usage of educational and awareness campaign will be adapted to through NGO’s

and education providers to create a significant demand of product.

Thirdly, institutionalising the long term support of better and more compatible designs for

stoves through excessive spending in research and development.

Fourthly the part includes the provision of stoves to most vulnerable groups like pregnant

women and women with disabilities.

13. What are the barriers/challenges for the adoption of clean cookstoves identified in

the report?

The report identifies multiple barriers that are causing problems in adoption of clean

cookstoves. The first barrier is the unavailability of standard testing labs and state machinery

to ensure a consistent quality of stoves in market. Unless a scientifically judged quality of

these stoves is not made any discussion on the possible benefits of good clean stoves is

premature. It is indeed the unavailability of proper quality standards that discourage people

from buying these stoves

Secondly the high cost of these stoves is a problem for local communities. Though in long

term these stoves are highly cost friendly as compared to traditional l ones but they do require

a high initial amount up to 60$. This price is high enough for vulnerable communities to stop

buying this stove. Since there are no banks and retailers that could give it on credit, the

majority of people avoid investing in them

Thirdly there are problems in the supply chain and production systems of the product. Not

many vendors are ready to deliver to far off places and to most vulnerable and instant people

like HIV patients.

References:

Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) . "Igniting change: a strategy for universal

adoption of clean cookstoves and fuels." (2011).

Wolf, Jennyfer, Daniel Mäusezahl, Hector Verastegui, and Stella M. Hartinger. "Adoption of

clean cookstoves after improved solid fuel stove programme exposure: a cross-sectional

study in three Peruvian Andean regions." International journal of environmental research

and public health 14, no. 7 (2017): 745.

Lewis, Jessica J., and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak. "Who adopts improved fuels and

cookstoves? A systematic review." Environmental health perspectives 120, no. 5 (2012):

637-645.

Griggs, David, Mark Stafford-Smith, Owen Gaffney, Johan Rockström, Marcus C. Öhman,

Priya Shyamsundar, Will Steffen, Gisbert Glaser, Norichika Kanie, and Ian Noble.

"Sustainable development goals for people and planet." Nature 495, no. 7441 (2013): 305-

307.