Travail de recherche/Working paper
| Résumé : | More than two billion people in the world and most households in Uganda depend on wood energy for cooking and/or heating. Yet, huge issues are associated with traditional use of wood fuels – i.a.energy inefficiency, deforestation, the associated increasing time for collection of fuel that largely affects women, deleterious health and environmental effects. As the development of a sustainable national grid has all too long been portrayed as something for the longer term, small-scale solutions will thus be very important in the shorter term, among which efficient biomass stoves and biogas installations. Yet despite the apparent benefits from clean cooking resulting in “dissemination" programs since the 1980’s, many developing country households have been slow to adopt them, largely because the technology transfer was project based rather than focussing on the development of a commercially viable business development. This study takes a qualitative approach and actors-based perspective from the major actors at the supply-side of the clean cooking on biomass market sector. A field research in Uganda, Kampala region, explored the success factors according to local private actors’ perceptions (entrepreneurs, manufacturers and distributors). We established a literature-based success-factor framework completed with the respondents’ experience. They generally confirmed insights in terms of enabling and conditions to strengthen the supply-side, the demand-side and the clean cooking market. First, to become ‘clean cooking champions’ – i.e. commercially viable – is still highly dependent on the role of supportive and intervening development programs, especially in terms of financing (i.a. soft loans and grants), capacity-building and awareness-raising (i.a. via promotion campaigns). Second, today, carbon finance is rather an additional incentive than a determinant factor for business activities in the clean cooking sector. Third, while some policies and targets exist, the crucial regulation (e.g. via quality standards) and implementation in favour of clean cooking in a dire informal cooking energy market is lacking. Thus, public policies will have to overcome the many ‘disabling conditions’ private actors face today. |
