If everything goes according to plan, the dangerous but popular practice of cooking through traditional stoves and open fires is about to become history in Nigeria. The beneficiaries of this laudable initiative are millions of Nigerians whose lives will be saved, while some who eke their living through sales of charcoal, fire-woods and other unclean fuels, may be sent of out of business, reports OLUKOREDE YISHAU.
Thick smokes envelope the air. A woman with a child strapped to her back supplies air to the source of the fire – using her mouth. She coughs from time to time, apparently from the choking smokes. So does the child at her back. But she continues to fan the open fire to boil the water for the eba her family will eat.
The scene is at a household in Isaga-Orile, an Egbado town near Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. The woman identified simply as Mama Comfort is just one of the over 22 million households in Nigeria who still depend on solid or unclean fuel for cooking, which leads to 93,300 deaths annually, according to latest statistics. Of the staggering figure, a whopping 36,584 of the mortality are said to be children. No thanks to poverty and ignorance, it matters less to these households the dangers cooking with unclean fuel poses to their health and the environment. Many are not even aware of the dangers.
In rural settings, such as Isaga-Orile, it is estimated that 91.60 per cent of the population cooks with unclean fuel. To feed their families, many simply go to the forest, pick dry trees and cook with them. Severe deforestation also sets in, posing its own danger of damaging the ozone layer.
After malaria and HIV/AIDS, smoke from open fire and other unclean sources is the biggest killer of mostly women and children, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Facts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF), and WHO, show that the use of unclean fuel also contribute to disability in some 2.6 million people. As if this is not worrisome enough, 3.8 per cent of the national burden of disease is attributed to solid fuel use because of the fact that the bulk of the population still rely on wood, charcoal and dung to prepare their meals.
Globally, health authorities, worried by the damaging effects of unclean fuels on households, have recommended the use of gas and other clean fuels for cooking, adding that diseases and deaths caused by the use of unclean fuels will be drastically reduced. Gas is one such clean fuel recommended by the WHO and others. In Nigeria, research has shown that only one per cent of the population cooks with gas; 0.3 per cent of the population uses electricity to cook because it is unreliable as a result of acute power shortage in the country; and 23 per cent use kerosene for cooking and when this becomes scarce as it is wont to, they resort to unclean fuels. The efforts of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited, which has increased domestic gas supply to 250,000 metric tonnes. It has also subsidised the product to the cost of about $50million since the intervention began. Still, unclean stoves still have the ace.
But the good times may be here if the plans of the Federal Government, the United States and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves materialise. On Wednesday, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) announced the government’s plan to spend N9.2b to purchase clean stoves for rural dwellers.
The Global Alliance , led by the United Nations Foundation with over 1000 public, private, multilateral, and nonprofit partners, is also taking its war against unclean stoves to another level.
The initiative is assuming a wider scope, with more money to achieve the needed impact. On November 21, the US Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy announced up to $200 million in expected renewed and enhanced support for the clean cooking sector. It is building on the US’ initial commitment from 2011 to 2015, but this next phase will bring the cumulative anticipated U.S. contribution commitment to this sector and the Alliance up to $325 million through 2020.
Aside the U.S. support, the Global Alliance also announced in November that a global community of clean cooking advocates and supporters has collectively committed $413 million over three years to further mobilise the clean cooking sector and advance the widespread adoption of clean cooking solutions. The announcement was made on the second day of the Cookstoves Future Summit, where more than 70 representatives from government, the private sector, investors, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations made commitments during the Alliance’s inaugural pledging event.
“Bilateral donor commitments, comprising both financial and policy commitments, totaled $286 million, including those made by Summit co-hosts Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The private sector committed to mobilise an additional $127 million, including a $100 million fund created through a partnership between the Alliance, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, other development finance institutions, and private investors, which will support the scale-up of social enterprises that advance and deploy clean cookstoves and fuels,” the Alliance said.
More than $250 million in commitments were announced by implementing countries, including Nigeria and Ghana. Ordinarily, this should be good news given the fact that the assistance will help improve health, reduce environmental degradation, mitigate climate change, and generate economic empowerment and opportunity for women and girls. Another reason why it should be a thing of joy, according to a research done for the Global Alliance by Accenture, is that it has the potential to help address the average life expectancy, which is just 47.5 years, among the lowest in the world. Also, it will also reverse the WHO’s observation that “in addition to this health problem, traditional biomass stoves burn 90 per cent more wood than is necessary. This has cost poor families and institutions money that could be put to better use on education, health, and nutrition.”
More so, clean Cookstoves can help prevent heart disease, lung disease and lung cancer, cervical cancer, and low birth weight. It will also reverse a situation where over 112 million Nigerians still cook with unwholesome cooking fuels and change the country’s status as the world’s worst in primary forest’s deforestation— between 2000 and 2005, the country lost 55.7 per cent of its primary forest.
Also supporting the need for a change in the status quo is the conclusion of a research published last year in the Global Journal on Health Science on the relationship between unclean cooking and pulmonary dysfunction in rural women and children. It shows that there is no alternative to clean Cookstoves. It said: “Exposure to HAP from biomass fuel is associated with pulmonary dysfunction, reduced antioxidant defense and inflammation of the airways.” The research was done by Oluwafemi Oluwole, Ganiyu Olatunbosun Arinola, Godson Rowland Ana, Tess Wiskel, Dezheng Huo, Olufunmilayo Ibironke Olopade and Christopher Olusola Olopade— who is the Medicine Clinical Director at the Centre for Global Health, University of Chicago.
Prof Sola Olopade, in an e-interview with this reporter, said: “We have an ongoing study that is comparing a stove that uses ethanol to kerosene and firewood on pregnancy outcome and the results should have significant policy implications when we complete the study.”
In spite of the gains of the initiative, Nigeria’s army of operators in the logging industry, especially firewood and charcoal sellers, are bound to be affected. That the country parades a high number of this is easily appreciated with a tour of major streets in Lagos suburbs such as Agege, Akowonjo, Ayobo, Ipaja and Ogun State satellite towns such as Sango, Ijoko and Akute. They are also in other parts of the country. In Hadejia, Jigawa State, they are said to be recording huge sales due to scarcity and high cost of kerosene and other sources of energy. There is hardly any part of the country that they are not.
To understand the matter better, the logging industry, despite its attendant evils, is entangled in money. Though there are no statistics on the worth of the industry, sources say many make millions selling firewood, charcoal and other unclean energy sources. For these people, Global Alliance’s renewed commitment to curb their activities is bad news. Experts say it is a choice between saving lives and losing jobs. They argue that lives cannot be replaced but jobs can.
Saving lives have the votes
The International Centre for Energy and Environmental Development (ICEED) believes there is no need debating which choice to make. Its Executive Director, Ewah Eleri, said the problem is not peculiar to Nigeria. He said: “The UN estimates that if nothing is done by 2030, 900 million people would not have access to electricity, and three billion will still cook with traditional fuels.
“Thirty million people would have died due to smoke-related diseases; just many hundreds of millions will be confined to poverty due to the lack of access to energy.
“Countries like China have connected 500 million people to electricity in rural areas since 1990, while Vietnam has increased coverage from five per cent to 98 per cent in 35 years.”
Eleri also observed that Cambodia, Mali and Madagascar had made significant progress by providing support to the private sector from their rural electrification funds. He said more Nigerians are, however, reverting to other unclean energy forms.
“Contrary to the expectations of the National Energy Policy of 2003, deepening poverty has forced a reversal in the transition to modern and efficient energy forms.
“Today, more Nigerians are climbing down the energy ladder, moving from electricity, gas and kerosene to fuel-wood and other traditional biomass energy forms.
“Moreover, millions of open fires in Nigerian homes contribute to the build-up of greenhouse gases that cause climate change.” The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Bukola Saraki, said the Federal Government should provide an enabling environment for the widespread adoption of Clean Cook-Stove across Nigeria. On the sentiment that jollof rice made with firewood tastes better, Saraki said: “You say jollof rice tastes better when cooked in firewood. Is it worth the risk to your life? It’s a choice you have to make. Maybe it’s true; maybe it’s not—that’s besides the point. It’s just that their health is more important. I think we can find ways to ensure that flavor doesn’t get in the way.”
Speaking to reporters after a monitoring and evaluation exercise to some of the beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s Clean Cook-Stoves programme in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State, Saraki, who is a member of the Leadership Council of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, said the Clean Cook-Stove initiative was a timely gesture that has ameliorated family cooking by reducing health dangers and economic downsides. A beneficiary identified as Miss Esther said the initiative has improved her family’s cooking processes by eliminating smoke and other unhygienic characters that accompany traditional cooking methods. The Senate appropriated N100 million in the 2014 appropriation Act to support the initiative.
Challenges of adopting clean-stoves
The national utilisation of LPG is put at 150,000 metric tons, representing less than 10 per cent of the households in the country where a potential of 1.5 million metric tons exists. Surprisingly, the country is the sixth largest producer of LPG in the world, yet it accounts for the lowest utilisation of the commodity in sub-Saharan Africa. It has been found that adopting clean-stoves requires changes to be made in the energy system in the country. A study done for the Alliance by the Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), the not-for-profit arm of the global management consultancy, Accenture, paints a gory picture of things that must change.
The study notes: “A quarter of the population relies on kerosene. Kerosene is currently subsidized in Nigeria, however frequent shortages, export smuggling, and black market pricing have increased costs and led to significant sourcing challenges for most consumers.
“While a large portion of the population currently collects firewood at little to no cost, those who purchase wood or charcoal often find themselves paying more on an ongoing basis than they would for LPG, a market dislocation generally attributed to high upfront costs and perception issues around LPG economics and safety.
“Current LPG solutions involve a high upfront cost which impedes adoption, especially by those in lower income segments. A LPG cookstove strategy should seek to minimise this cost by creating a Base of the Pyramid (BOP) LPG solution, which is smaller in size (and therefore cost), and integrating a burner and cylinder in one solution.
“To spread out upfront expenses, a large barrier for many consumers, a microfinance option should be investigated to allow consumers to pay for the solution in installments
“To further reduce upfront costs for clean cookstoves and fuels, carbon finance should be leveraged to achieve accreditation for solutions and put carbon revenue to work lowering costs for consumers structures currently in progress such as CDM PoA’s should be utilised for this purpose
“The supply chain for LPG should be secured and streamlined to reduce unnecessary costs, ensure quality and safety, and guarantee a steady supply to Nigerian consumers. A LPG cookstove strategy should first aim to penetrate the urban areas before expanding nationwide. Branding, consumer education, and training on usage should be used to minimize both actual and perceived risks of LPG usage.”
The Accenture findings are in consonance with the views of the Managing Director, Strategic Energy Limited, Dayo Adeshina. In a presentation at an LPG conference, he said “the present population could consume about 3.5 million metric tonnes if LPG was the major fuel for cooking in Nigeria. The reality today is that Nigerians consumed only about 150,000 metric tonnes in 2012. This is a huge gap from the expected consumption annually.”
He blamed this on the fact that government policies has not changed over the years to promote wide usage of domestic LPG.
Adeshina said distribution facilities, such as inland storage terminals and trucks, could help in the equalisation of LPG cost per kilogramme to end users.
He said: “Fabrication of LPG equipment in Nigeria is very expensive due to the lack of stable power and high cost of raw materials, labour and generating power for production. On the other hand, the duties and tariffs on imported equipment are very high (20 per cent -35 per cent).
“There is VAT on the domestic LPG supplied to the market while imported LPG enjoys zero VAT. This usually creates additional cost on the domestic LPG.
“No preference is given to LPG equipment imported, for reduction in duties and tariff. Rather, duties were increased on LPG equipment thereby discouraging the provision of LPG facilities by willing organisations in the sector. This has created a situation whereby the LPG allocated (150,000MT/annum) by government through NLNG to the domestic market does not fit the quantity of LPG equipment that would facilitate the usage of the allocated LPG, hence the slow growth in the industry
“The major product affecting LPG is kerosene which is subsidised by the Federal Government. Preference is given to kerosene at all levels of the value chain (at discharge points in the jetties, subsidised, well distributed to marketers e.t.c.), over LPG, which is cleaner, more efficient and also cheaper. Government should implement the Indonesian project on LPG.
“There is no major policy that encourages widely promoted green projects (e.g. auto gas, power generation e.t.c.) using Nigeria’s abundant LPG at the Federal Government level would also help to stimulate the rapid growth of the industry. There are no clear cut regulations for segments in the LPG value chain. Funding provided by banks is usually short term fund for long term projects. No specific fund was set aside to encourage the growth of LPG similar to funds provided by government in various industries (e.g. the Nollywood, textile, agriculture e.t.c.).
“Interest rate for available funds is very high such that it leads to organisations defaulting in re-payments of loans and thereby collapsing. There is no major commitment from the CBN to assist SMEs in growing the LPG market, which should be a strategic fuel in the Nigerian energy mix.”
For the LPG market to grow, he said government and the Nigerian LPG Association must meet “to discuss the action plans on improving LPG usage in Nigeria based on various communiqués obtained from several conferences held on Building the Nigerian LPG sector”.
This, he said, would really assist in coming up with a blue print document that should be used to create the action plans to grow the LPG sector.
Adeshina added: “Government at all levels in Nigeria must be committed to the growth of LPG through various schemes (e.g. pioneered by the Lagos State government), to promote the well being of Nigerian (health-wise, employment- wise, environmentally-wise e.t.c) using LPG as a tool for the projects. Direct participation of government in conjunction with reputable organisations in the LPG sector for specific number of years should be encouraged
“The Federal Government should divert a certain percentage of the subsidy funds spent on kerosene annually, on stimulating the LPG usage for a geometric growth rate in the sector, while fully diverting kerosene consumed by Nigerian citizens to the aviation sector. This would create double sources of income for government. The Federal Government should create policies that support green projects using LPG. A very strategic area would be auto-gas, if government is willing to reduce pollution from vehicles on Nigerian roads. Going forward, Federal Government’s fleet of vehicles should be converted to auto-gas powered in order to support the growth of LPG usage in Nigeria.”
He said adopting the Indonesian model for the LPG sector would go a long way to help the country.
The Indonesian government embarked on a scheme aimed at improving the lifestyle of the people through the promotion of LPG over kerosene. The project was started in May 2007. It included drastic reduction on subsidy of kerosene, allocation of kerosene to profitable use such as the aviation industry, gradual withdrawal of kerosene for domestic use, distribution of free package of LPG cylinders, stoves, hoses and regulators and the usage of massive communication medium to promote the project. The Indonesian government, he said, saved more than $6.9 billion between over 2007 and last year. This, he explained, is money that would have been spent as subsidy on kerosene.
By August 2012, Adeshina said, 99.6 per cent of the targeted households had embraced LPG, representing 53.8 million of the 54 million households.
Last week, NLNG Managing Director Babs Omotowa said only about 600,000 metric tonnes of cooking gas have been absorbed by the local market since NLNG’s intervention in September 2007 because of market inefficiencies across the LPG value chain. These, he added, include the absence of a functioning cylinder manufacturing plant, inadequate storage, poor transportation network and infrastructure, limited jetty availability and low-priority berthing given to LPG vessels, which have all conspired to thwart the market’s ability to absorb NLNG’s increased supply.
Other critical areas of possible intervention as highlighted by the NLNG CEO include terminal operation and development, distribution and retail, promotion and awareness and government policy and incentives for full maturity of the domestic LPG market.
There is also the campaign for subsidy to be introduced to encourage clean-stoves. This is being championed by the President-General, Abuja Market Women Association of Nigeria, Mrs Felicia Sanni. She told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that cooking with firewood had a negative effect on the health of women, particularly their sight. “What firewood does is better imagined than said. So, we are appealing to the Federal Government to make clean cooking stoves available and affordable; we are not saying they should dash us.
“No market woman believes in dash; there is nowhere in the world that government provides such facilities free of charge. Even in the United States, they still buy; so government should provide it for us at a cheaper rate.’’
She said the association had been partnering the Federal Ministry of Environment to sensitise market women on the need to embrace clean cooking energy.
Mrs Sanni said she had observed that cooking with gas which people considered to be expensive was cheaper in the long run, because of the health advantage.
“We want to carry the awareness to our rural women to tell them that the firewood that they think is cheaper is not cheaper at all because of the damaging effect.
“If we see people smoking cigarette, we laugh at them but if you are using firewood, smoke is entering your eyes, lungs, heart and other parts of your body.
“It is even better you smoke 280 packages of cigarette at a time than to cook with firewood because of the health implications,’’ she said. According to her, the association would campaign in the 36 states of the federation, to create awareness on the negative consequences of using firewood.
Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
The Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a public-private partnership that seeks to introduce 10 million clean Cookstoves to Nigerian homes and institutions by 2020. It supports the reform of clean cooking energy policies at federal and state levels, and promotes innovative financial solutions, quality assurance and access to clean cooking energy information in Nigeria.
Nigerian Alliance partners include four Federal Government agencies, donors, financial institutions, the private sector and NGOs. Its members include Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Women Affairs, Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), Shell, ICEED and Oando. Members of the alliance have individually and collectively taking steps towards ensuring the use of clean stoves.
The Federal Ministry of Environment is partnering market women to step up the campaign in rural areas. The national campaign is tagged “Rural Women Energy Security (RUWES)’’ project.
The lighting component of RUWES seeks to ensure affordable and sustainable clean energy access to the rural people and reducing black carbon emissions. The ministry is also behind the N16 billion Great Green Wall (GGW) programme aimed at checking desertification in the North, increase the nation’s forest cover and contribute to global action against climate change.
Minister of Environment Mrs. Laurentia Mallam said the GGW programme is a three-year project which started in 2013, adding that President Goodluck Jonathan has provided funds for the programme up to 2015 frame-work to the tune of about N16 billion. Mrs Mallam said the programme would encourage the use of alternative sources of energy other than firewood, discouraging indiscriminate falling of trees and encouraging tree planting.
Wednesday’s approval for the purchase of N9.2billion worth of clean cook stoves and wonder bags for rural women is a key component of the National Clean Cooking Scheme. Wonder bag is a non-electric slow cooker invented by Sarah Collins, a South African eco-entreprenuer.
750,000 units of clean cook stove and 18,000 wonder bags are to be purchased. The stoves are expected to be delivered by Messrs Integra Renewable Energy Services Limited within a period of 12 weeks.
The scheme is expected to provide 20 million clean stoves over a five-year period at the rate of four million stoves yearly, which will be distributed without charge.
On Oando’s part, it is helping low income households to switch to cooking gas. It introduced a 3kg cooking stove to promote clean cooking.
The company plans to inject five million cooking stoves into homes in five years. CEO, Oando Marketing Mr. Abayomi Awobokun said: “This is another important step in our quest to provide innovative and affordable LPG cooking stoves to an estimated five million low income households over the next five years. We are strongly encouraged by the reception and feedback from consumers and other relevant stakeholders since we introduced the 3-in-1 gas cooking stove this year. This partnership with Lift Above Poverty Organisation Microfinance Bank (LAPO) is one of many to boost our effort to switch majority of Nigerians from the use of biomass fuel to deepen LPG utilisation”
Oando also has a scheme through which entrepreneurs are empowered to be distributors of the cooking stove as secondary distribution point.
“These entrepreneurs are closer to the low income households and are provided with three-wheeler vehicles to move the products even to the remotest locations whilst the households can refill their gas at the SDP site or any of Oando’s Pay-U-Gas facility, an LPG dispensing unit that allows consumers to buy gas that suits their pockets,” said the company.
January 2015
In January 2015, the Alliance will launch the Phase 2 of its ten-year Strategic Business Plan. It only made the announcement in November. The second phase, which promises to be more aggressive given the financial and other commitments already in place, has the potential to take away thick smokes that envelope the country’s air. What this means is that the war against unclean fuels may never remain the same again. And Nigerians will be the healthier for it.
