Burkina Faso Energy Situation

1.1 Energy situation

In Burkina Faso more than 80 % of the energy supply is covered by biomass (wood and charcoal), in rural areas this ration accounts for nearly 100 %. Nation average is a consumption of 0,69 kg firewood per person, but this ration can rise in some areas up to more than 1 kg, depending on low firewood prices and higher humidity that causes higher consumption. In addition, urban households prefer charcoal to wood – this is considered to be more proper and ―modern‖. Charcoal production causes thus high wood consumption in rural areas, even if it has been re-organized and concentrated in five production areas in 2005. As the population is growing, pressure on forest resources is growing as well. Nevertheless, scarcity of fuel is not really sensible in many parts of the country: wood collection is still a by-product of agricultural activity and firewood can still be found at least near the remote bush fields of each family, where people often are not sensible enough to avoid cutting fresh, green trees. Situation is different in the north, where scarcity even in rural areas is growing, and in the towns, where wood and charcoal are commercial products and scarcity is reflected by rising fuel prices thus affecting the poverty situation of most households. The most used alternative energy for household cooking is gas: but while nearly 35 % of households in big towns and still some 10 – 25 % in smaller towns own gas equipment, gas only counts for 0,4 % of the urban consumption due to the lack of reliability of gas provisions. An enlargement of gas consumption, although officially wanted by the government, is not very likely due to the high investment costs for the households (and the inability of the government to support the subsidies necessary to keep gas affordable). The baseline stoves for firewood (3-stone-stove) and charcoal (simple metal stove called ―le Malgache‖) are very cheap. Hence any ―new‖ technology has to compete with the expectation of low technology prices. In addition, stoves have to be low and very stable, because the traditional daily food is a millet porridge that has to be ―beaten‖ during preparation – a work that is very demanding for the cook as well as for the stove equipment. The improved stoves conceived in Burkina Faso at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s take this aspects into account, and they cost around 3 – 4 €. In addition, they can also be constructed in bigger sizes to cover the needs of extended families and professional users. For the moment, other improved wood or charcoal stoves on the international market that could eventually be imported (e.g. the Aprovecho stove) do not seem to be adapted to the cooking habits: they are not stable enough to support the impact during porridge preparation and the standard sizes could not cover the needs of extended families. For the same reasons, the existing solar and plant oil cooker models cannot reasonably be diffused in Burkina Faso in large numbers. In addition, they are too expensive and – regarding the plant oil cooker – fuel supply is not guaranteed. The main problems are thus to raise the awareness for the necessity of fuel economy even outside the big cities and to make stable, durable and cheap stoves available even for poorer and remote parts of the population.

1.2. Policy framework, laws and regulations

Burkina Faso‘s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) does not have a particular accent on energy or environment issues. The current version (2009-2011) has chapters in ―reduction of pollution and ―sustainable management of natural resources. However, the solutions proposed are only dealing with the enlargement of urban street capacities and the maintenance of natural resources for pastoralist respectively. From 2010 onwards, the PRSP format should be replaced by a ―Strategy of accelerated growth that stresses merely exclusively on economic growth relying on the development of some urban economic pools and counting on a ―trickle down effect for the urban poor and the rural areas. More indicative for further DGIS interventions are the regional development plans and strategies, that are mostly considering environmental and energy issues in the sense that they are aiming at a sustainable management to assure provision even for future generations. In its 2008 version, the development plan of the capital‘s region views the access to modern energy as a measure of poverty reduction. According to this, FAFASO has already undertaken joint activities with the Regional Council of the Central (the capital‘s) region to enlarge access to improved stoves to wider population groups, in first line in the semi-rural parts around the capital. Regarding access to biomass, the environmental services have as mission to regulate access to wood supply (and to tax any fresh wood cut anyway) even for individual cutting in the villages, but they are too badly equipped to assume this role. Nevertheless and quasi as an ―heritage‖ of the 1980s revolutionary period, the control of big scale wood transport is still functional (in large parts): only specially accredited (painted in green and white) transporters are allowed to transport fire-wood and they are still controlled automatically on the overland streets. For the charcoal sector, the government decreed, in 2005, a nationwide stop of artisanal production for several months and gave afterwards licenses to some defined production areas. This system seems to work more or less.

1.3. Institutional set up in the energy sector, activities of other donors

Since the 1970s, Burkina Faso has been one of the leading countries in the sub region in regards to the development and the dissemination of improved stoves. As a result, the country has today a huge experience in terms of technology. A considerable choice of adapted stove types is available. On the other hand, most of the projects of the past have been donor or state driven – they cracked down in the moment when the donor retired or state politics changed (as it was the case after the ―revolution in the 1980s). In consequence, a kind of institutional setup is existing, but for the most part this concerns institutions believing that the dissemination of improved stoves should forcedly pass by them, without really having the (personal and financial) capacities to assume their roles. On the research and technology side, the ―Institute of Research in Applied Sciences and Technologies (IRSAT), a department of the Ministry of Secondary Schools and Research, has kept its standards and is still the only institution capable of accreditation for improved stoves and defining standards. But IRSAT has no capacities (and no ambitions) in dissemination. On the other side, the Ministry of Environment is seeing itself as the agency to be implied in stoves‘ dissemination, eventual assisted by the Ministry of Women‘s Rights. In this, the Ministry of Environment is not only contested by other governmental departments (e.g. the Ministry of Energy, not only in charge with a World Bank Programme for the Dissemination of improved stoves at the moment, but also responsible for the implementation of the national strategy for domestic energies, developed by CILSS-PREDAS), but its real capacities to lead a sustainable stoves‘ programme have never shown up even in the past: all strategies relying on the Ministry for the dissemination of stoves broke down at latest when the donor retired (and notwithstanding the efforts the donors made in the strengthening of the Ministry‘s capacities). Most of the dissemination strategies in the past relied on subsidies (with the argument that Burkina‘s poor population could not afford the real prises) and passed by the Ministry of Environment and several NGOs to spread the stoves and the technology. Used to ever new upcoming project, none of these actors was, at the beginning of FAFASO‘s activities in 2005, really willing to adhere to a sustainable strategy that directs the use of the project funds rather to the producers and other actors of the private sector than to state or civil society institutions. To establish a sustainable system, FAFASO has since the beginning of its activities in 2006 fully relied on structures in the private sector and followed a commercial approach, counting on the producers interests in disseminating the stoves (to earn money for themselves) and on the users acceptance of the stoves‘ advantages. With the extension of activities in rural areas, FAFASO started in 2008 to integrate provincial divisions of the Ministry of Environment in the training and dissemination process. However, the ministry‘s agents failed to deliver at all – even if they have been promised to get paid for this. With its overall experience (65.000 stoves sold without subsidies and without government structures as intermediates, proved inactivity of stately agents), FAFASO is now in a position where the project can negotiate partnership with the state actors in favour of a real sustainable approach. Beside some little NGOs, the biggest other actor in the sector is a World Bank Programme (PASE), officially started in February 2008, launched in October of the same year and having as objective the dissemination of 250.000 stoves within five years. Even if PASE always pointed that they will not pay direct subsidies on the sales prises, there exists the danger that they will change the strategy in face of a situation, where by now, after 1,5 year of official existence, no single stove has been disseminated by them – pressure to achieve the goal could thus bring PASE to change strategy.

1.4. Other major activities in the country financed by BMZ or DGIS

In Burkina Faso there are four other DGIS programmes dealing mainly with Solar Home Systems or biofuel (jatropha). On the BMZ side, several partners can be identified:

• Having been, during its 2nd phase, part of GTZ ―Decentralisation Programme, FAFASO has acquired some kinds of experience in the communal sectors and a huge knowledge of communal actors and procedures,
• Concerning the stoves‘ segment, the KfW component FICOD has been touched to disseminate stoves for institutions, e.g. for school canteens,
• The GTZ ―Health and Human Rights Programme is a potential partner also with respect to school canteens, but also for the realisation of awareness campaigns on health issues related to stoves,
• The GTZ ―Agricultural programme has a big stress on the transformation and commercialization of agricultural products. They already manifested their interest in integrating improved stoves for professional use (especially the shea butter cashew stoves still to be conceived by IRSAT) in their production chain.