Worldwide, over 3 billion people are exposed to toxic smoke from their traditional cookstoves. Breathing in this toxic mix of chemicals daily causes the premature death of over 1.9 million people each year, many from COPD, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
This problem has been challenging health and international aid experts since the 1950s and recently, a new initiative has been created to provide a successful approach to addressing this complex, global health crisis.
Every 16 seconds someone dies from exposure to cookstove smoke, according to the Alliance.
This initiative has support from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. Secretary Clinton announced the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves at the recent Clinton Global Initiative, asking for support for a newly formed organization whose sole focus is to reduce deaths, improve lives and fight climate change by providing clean and efficient household cooking solutions to the world. Launched in September 2010, the Alliance is a publicprivate partnership led by the United Nations Foundation; it is the first truly comprehensive global initiative aimed at addressing this enduring problem.
The Problem
Every 16 seconds someone dies from exposure to cookstove smoke, according to the Alliance. With almost half of the people in the world using polluting, inefficient stoves to provide heat and cook their food daily, the WHO has classified indoor/household air pollution as the fifth biggest health risk in the developing world. The American Thoracic Society (ATS), in an official public policy statement in 2010, stated that the smoke from cookstoves “emit(s) high levels of multiple pollutants that are similar to those present in tobacco smoke.” The ATS also stated that particulate matter concentrations (pollution) in traditional cookstove kitchens are very high and greatly exceeding “most governmental standards for outdoor air.”
Of the 1.9 million deaths from cookstove smoke exposure, 54 percent are from COPD, according to a 2009 study from the WHO and the United Nations Development Programme.
The Solution
The simple answer is: provide families in developing countries with a stove that uses less fuel and burns it more efficiently with less toxic smoke. Recent studies have shown a link between improved, clean stoves with lowered emissions and health benefits. A program in Guatemala in 2003-2005 provided improved cookstoves featuring a chimney to 500 rural women. Analysis of this intervention showed a simple chimney stove can substantially reduce chronic exposures to harmful indoor air pollutants among women and infants. Analysis also found that chronic respiratory symptoms were reduced in women receiving the improved stoves. Clean stoves that produce fewer emissions also postively affect climate change.
Widespread production and distribution of clean stoves is a complex issue. Many nonprofit organizations, foundations, and governments have distributed cleaner, improved cookstoves in previous outreach programs. Yet, unfortunately, these efforts have not always been successful. Cleaner stoves have often been rejected by users because of lack of understanding of the health benefits and frustration with the stove’s design. A critical component to any successful solution to the cookstoves issue is meeting culture-specific needs. The Alliance has made this a component in its mission along with creating a reasonable market environment for affordable cookstoves.
“There has never been a truly comprehensive effort to address this issue,” says Leslie Cordes, Interim Executive Director of the Alliance. Previous efforts focused solely on deployment of stoves designed to lessen fuel needs to protect forests. “We are looking at all of the components of the problem from a holistic view point,” Cordes says.
But the Alliance has not forgotten that the problem of inefficient cookstoves is a crisis of health and safety for the world’s poorest women. All working groups have representatives tasked with ensuring the perspectives of women are considered, says the Alliance.
Recent innovations in cookstoves make this a good time for a new, coordinated global initiative, according to the Alliance. Several manufacturers have created stoves that burn more efficiently and release fewer harmful emissions. Some feature fans are powered by waste heat, while others are solar-powered or use locally abundant plant oil. In addition, the increasing need and availability of resources for addressing local and regional climate change also makes the timing right for a new global initiative, says the Alliance.
Global Partnerships
But ultimately, what makes the Alliance unique, and what may make it successful where others were not, is its extensive network of partners. Corporate donors, national governments, private foundations, academic experts, and nonprofit organizations are among the Alliance’s list of partners.
The list spans the globe with governmental partners from Germany, Norway, Peru, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Kenya, Lesotho, the Nigerian African Alliance, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, El Salvador, and the U.S. Departments of State, Energy and Health and Human Services and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The U.S. has pledged $50 million over five years to the initiative.
Several big names among the Alliance’s partners bring extensive international, research and environmental expertise to the table: the Shell Foundation, World Bank, and the United Nations Foundation, among others. The list also includes a host of organizations and businesses around the world with experience and expertise in the manufacturing and distribution of clean stoves.
Yet as it convenes its working groups and garners the resources and experience of its partners, the Alliance faces a more immediate task: building awareness for this global health and environmental problem.
“This is the biggest issue you’ve never heard of,” explains Cordes. “Most people (including many health experts) are dumbstruck by the scale of this problem. They hear the number of deaths and ask ‘why have we never heard of this?’” The more people are informed, the more likely to get involved says Cordes. “We need to raise awareness (for the problem) to help us raise resources,” she explains. The initiative for clean cookstoves needs to follow in the steps of campaigns for HIV/AIDS and clean water, explains Cordes. “These worthy causes raise billions of dollars because people have become concerned about these issues.”
To help the Alliance in its efforts to raise awareness and concern, actress Julia Roberts has recently joined as its Global Ambassador. The hope is that her high profile work will help the Alliance and its partners reach the impressive goal they have set: “100 by 20”— 100 million homes around the world with cleaner stoves by 2020.
Speaking to this as she helped launch the Alliance last fall, Secretary Clinton said, “The benefits from this initiative will be cleaner and safer homes, and that will, in turn, ripple out for healthier families, stronger communities and more stable societies.” One cookstove at a time.
Link
Print