Technology, Markets and People: The Use and Misuse of Fuelsaving Stoves - A project case study (UNEP, 1989, 66 p.) Section 1: Overview (introduction...) 1.1) Summary 1.2) Target readership 1.3) Structure

Technology, Markets and People: The Use and Misuse of Fuelsaving Stoves - A project case study (UNEP, 1989, 66 p.)

Section 1: Overview

This is a case study of a fuelwood conservation project. It is intended to provide a series of suggestions and ideas which have emerged from our own experience and which we believe will be of interest and value to those concerned with similar issues elsewhere.

The project is still going on, and going well. It was never a research project, nor does this set out to be an academic research paper it is written by the management of the ongoing programme, and addressed to those directly involved in combatting the growing, global problem of deforestation. It is a brief document: we assume you are as hard-pressed as we are. We hope you find it useful.

Hard pressed

1.1) Summary

The United Nations Environment Programme/Bellerive Foundation project Plantation and Efficient Utilisation of Fuelwood in Rural Areas of Kenya set out to pilot a number of responses to the problem of unsustainable fuelwood demand, perceived to be inseparably linked to the issue of deforestation. Since readers will be familiar with these issues, we assume that it is not necessary to justify the longterm objective: reducing the rate of deforestation in Africa.

The link between deforestation and fuelwood demand is clearly not as simple as it was generally thought at the time of the project’s inception, but we will postpone discussion of this point to sub-section 4.4 below.

Of the activities originally looked at which ranged from the introduction of food/fuel crops to the development of low-cost biogas utilisation systems, two were singled out very early in the project for intensive investigation. These were:

· the promotion of fuelwood production through the cultivation and distribution of tree seedlings;

and

· the reduction of fuelwood demand through the introduction of improved, fuel-efficient, cooking systems.

This latter activity was subsequently resolved into two independent project components, one addressing domestic fuelwood demand, the other addressing the consumption of fuelwood in institutional catering.

Most of this report is devoted to specific lessons to be drawn from our progress in implementing the project. Three general conclusions have emerged:

· Concerning project design:

It is not just the technology which needs to be “appropriate”. The whole production, extension and marketing strategy (“dissemination” in the jargon) must be developed on the ground, tailored to the conditions prevailing in the project target area through an extensive pilot phase. But this is not an invitation to yet more research and endless feasibility studies. Academic surveys can not, in any case, ever yield all the information that would, ideally, be required.

We should make what assumptions are necessary to get action started in the field, and (this is the key) subsequently acknowledge that these assumptions may turn out to be wrong. Such flexibility, from both donors and project implementors alike, is essential if we are to adopt a sufficiently responsive approach to such a diverse and complex problem as deforestation.

· Concerning the role of technology:

In almost all projects involving technical innovations, there is a tendency for the technology itself to be overemphasised (“how many stoves have been disseminated?”), at the expense of the human aspects of the problem: the need for new ideas, new ways of doing things, new attitudes, perhaps, among the people of the target region.

There is no such thing as a fuel-saving stove: stoves, in themselves, do not save fuel. People may use an improved stove to help them to conserve, but the stove is nothing more than a tool, and using the stove may be only one of a number of innovations all of which may contribute to reducing fuelwood consumption. The starting point of any fuelwood demand reduction project must be to demonstrate to the people the potential for fuelwood savings, and not the technical characteristics of the gadget to be introduced.

· Concerning the role of the market:

In pursuit of “self-sustaining” projects there is a tendency to restrict interventions to those which “make economic sense” now. In combatting deforestation, the problem is that fuelwood is still effectively free almost everywhere, the only cost involved being the cost of collecting, and it will remain so until the environmental situation is beyond hope. Thus conserving fuelwood cannot. In general, be presented as an economically sensible activity.

This does not mean we have to give up. This project has shown that by focussing on specific sectors of the fuelwood economy, and by presenting people with more clearly accessible goals than the global environmental concerns usually offered as justification for afforestation, we can motivate the community to conserve, regardless of what is dictated by the raw cost-benefit equation.

Markets are made up of people, and the attitudes and beliefs of the people define the values on which the market operates. These values are not sacrosanct: any effective project will influence them to some degree, not least by making new ideas and information available. If narrow economics seems to conflict with our objectives, as is often the case with environmental projects, we should not abandon those objectives as “unsustainable”. Nor, on the other hand, can we disregard the market altogether.

We should design the project to create the conditions in which market forces will work in our favour. We must work with the market, but not prostrate ourselves before it.

1.2) Target readership

This report will probably be most valuable to those directly engaged in the design, implementation and evaluation of fuelwood conservation programmes in developing countries. While we assume, therefore, that readers will be familiar with the issues involved, the tone throughout is non-technical.

Although this is written by the project management, it is not a project management report: we have left out detailed quantitative analysis of the degree of achievement of specific project objectives, assuming the majority of readers will be more interested in our general conclusions. Those interested in such details may refer to the Final Report on the project, submitted June 1988 to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

1.3) Structure

We have divided up the sections according to areas of interest rather than by the historical progress of events, because we feel that this structure will be more useful for our primary purpose: to provide ideas, rather than to tell a story. To place the events and activities in context, we begin with a discussion of the project as a whole, as it was originally designed. We go on to consider the strategies which we developed in the light of our experience in the early stages of the project One sub-section, 4.5, is devoted to the most successful outcome of the project, the ongoing Kenya institutional Fuelwood Saving Programme.

More space is devoted to the activities relating to fuelwood demand reduction. This should not be taken to imply that we believe that demand reduction is the highest priority in a programme aimed at combatting deforestation: simply that we have aquired more experience in this particular field. Moreover, there is substantially more information available on the subject of fuelwood production, and we therefore feel we have more to contribute on the demand reduction side.