Through a collaborative partnership with Ugandan companies and non-governmental organizations, GTZ and the Ugandan Ministry of Energy are working to provide rural populations with sustainable cook stove technology. The partnership, also known as the Energy Advisory Project, promotes grassroots community participation and seeks to provide public outreach to populations most vulnerable to poor indoor air quality due to smoke inhalation. In the last few years, over 600,000 improved stoves have been installed in rural households. In addition, over 200 schools, hospitals, and companies now use cleaner stove and oven technologies, saving over 60 percent in fuel and energy costs. Please read on for more information from GTZ's John Kuteesakwe.
What is the most exciting aspect of your work?
To see that the GTZ- Ministry of Energy, Uganda is significantly contributing towards solving problems of the rural poor. It is encouraging that the approach used has reached the poor rather than becoming another ideal theoretical model with no practical benefit to the most affected people. The functional process is compliant with the socio-economic context, wherein poverty does not play a central role in hindering the dissemination mechanism; the construction materials, tools and expertise can be generated locally and left to sustain the process.
What accomplishments are you most proud of?
We’re most proud of reaching over 0.5 million households (2.5 million people) in the rural areas in less than 5 years. This is approximately 10% of the population. This count excludes those stoves that are disseminated in the neighboring countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Congo and Southern Sudan. This overflow of expertise is a great achievement in itself. This wide coverage translates into a great saving not only in terms of energy, money, time for wood collection and cooking, but also health because of reduced IAP.
How has PCIA helped you in your work?
Learning more about stove designs, getting an opportunity meet the various PCIA partners who are manufacturing improved stoves, and learning more about funding mechanisms such as carbon finance. Furthermore, the wealth of information acquired during the PCIA Forum is a great resource for justification of stove dissemination and will push the stove program another mile.
What did you find most useful about the 2009 PCIA Forum?
Information exchange was the most useful aspect of the Forum for us. Specifically, technical exchange on stove design with the Aprovecho team; learning more about the dangers of IAP; and getting to know what Partners are doing in other countries, which has opened our eyes to the outside world to see what others are doing and to learn from them. Technical exchange with Aprovecho has enabled us to gain more technical understanding and to look more critically at the different aspects of our designs and to think creatively about the different ways of improving them to make economic and technical sense. We will use what we learned about the health impacts of IAP in publicizing the dangers of smoke, so as to create more rationale for the improved stoves.
What mentoring or other opportunities have you had to share your successful approaches with others?
I have been proud to take the PCIA community to the rural areas where the stoves are disseminated and to have the implementing partners explain the strategy used for the commercialization of the stove as a way of sharing best practices and approaches with other partners.
What are your program’s goals for the coming 1-2 years?
We will disseminate stoves in more than 220,000 households, focusing on Northern Uganda. Other top priorities will be to develop more capacity for stove dissemination and to lobby for more partners (NGOs and private companies) to join the stove commercialization process. We will carry out more intensive awareness raising to increase stove popularity. We also plan to further engage local governments, getting them more involved in this process of stove dissemination.