Abstract
Many stakeholders are involved in the Kenyan clean cooking sector, often having different perspectives, interests and agendas about the adoption, impacts and scaling-up of clean cooking interventions. Understanding the perceptions of non end-user stakeholders can enrich current debates about clean cooking options that are usually informed by rigorous, yet highly compartmentalized research. Through expert interviews, we elicit the perceptions of 27 stakeholder organizations involved in the clean cooking sector in Kenya. The analysis offers unique insights about the divergences and convergences of their perceptions regarding the key drivers, barriers, and impacts of clean cookstove adoption. Furthermore, it hints how such diverse perspectives can be mobilized to inform ways forward to enhance stove uptake and sustained use, eventually increasing the sustainability in the sector.
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Notes
The Founder of Burn Manufacturing outlined that their success lies in fostering consumer loyalty, establishing customer relationships, and building trusting relationship for the longer-term support. He stated that: “… we often check in with our customers 6 months after purchase to measure their initial satisfaction with the stove and ask them about their usage. …we also encourage repeat purchase behaviour if their stove is at the end of its useful life, we can send them SMS messages about our latest products and may offer them a purchase discount” (personal comm: BML).
Through a USAID-funded project [“Developing a Sustainable Cookstove Sector” (DSCS)], Winrock supported the expansion of this program to sell improved cookstove products through Equity Bank branches and retail shops, offering improved charcoal cookstoves from Burn Manufacturing, EcoZoom and Envirofit (personal comm: E-bank;BML). By 2017 more than 11,500 improved cookstoves were sold through cash and loan sales. With its mobile lending tool, the program possibly reached more potential customers with affordable loans for clean cookstoves (personal comm: E-bank).
There is large variation in the upfront costs of clean cooking options. For example, in rural Kenya the average cost for an advanced biomass stove is about USD 40 (personal comm: GIZ-1;BML), while for a biogas installation USD 1000–1500 depending on bio-digester capacity (personal comm: SES;MPL).
The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) developed in 2005 household stove standards (KS 1814–1:2005). These standards currently address thermal efficiency, durability and the testing approach, but not the volume of toxic emissions (GoK 2013a). Similarly, the KS 2520:2013 has established parameters to ensure the efficiency, safety, and durability of biogas stoves and digesters installed in Kenya (GoK 2013b).
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the support of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for a Grant-In-Aid of Young Scientists (A) (17H05037). Alice Karanja is supported by a Monbukagakusho scholarship offered by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) through the Graduate Program in Sustainability Science-Global Leadership Initiative (GPSS-GLI), at the University of Tokyo.
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Karanja, A., Mburu, F. & Gasparatos, A. A multi-stakeholder perception analysis about the adoption, impacts and priority areas in the Kenyan clean cooking sector. Sustain Sci 15, 333–351 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00742-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00742-4