Slow and Steady But Not to Scale: Lessons from a Context-responsive Approach to Market-based Stove Development in Western Kenya

Slow and Steady But Not to Scale: Lessons from a Context-responsive Approach to Market-based Stove Development in Western Kenya

Presenter: Temilade Sesan, (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)

Overview

Improved stoves targeted at the 2.6 billion people worldwide that use solid biomass for cooking have not been taken up in the numbers expected by donors and practitioners. Following widespread critique of the subsidy-based dissemination models popular in the 1970s and 1980s, donors have begun to emphasise the potential of market-based models to increase stove adoption rates. In analysing the USEPA project implemented by Practical Action in western Kenya, this paper examines how a market-based approach has translated in the kind of informal economy operated by many biomassreliant communities. The paper concludes that a context-responsive approach is likely to facilitate the dissemination of locally appropriate interventions, but it may not always be compatible with mainstream visions of large-scale stove deployment.

250px