Check out the interactive map below.

In a technological landscape that is altered by emergence of off-grid and distributed approaches, there is a need amongst infrastructure planners to evaluate the costs of networked approaches vis a vis off-grid approaches and to make rapid assessment of the progress in rural electrification. However, it is not easy to estimate the cost of networked infrastructure taking into account both the spatial distribution of demand and the optimal placement of infrastructure to meet that demand. Through its algorithms, Selin’s proposal can enable the tools that allow planners to make assessments about networked infrastructure rapidly and accurately.

The first heuristic algorithm, Selin proposes, provides a quick solution for the partial electrification problem where the grid network can only connect pre-specified number of households with low voltage lines. It also, helps understanding the effect of household settlement patterns on the electrification cost. Moreover, she describes the first multi-level heuristic algorithm that can simultaneously select the locations and service areas of transformers without requiring candidate locations and builds network in both medium voltage and low voltage levels in a power distribution system. The algorithm minimizes overall infrastructure costs while considering the cost of the transformer, the costs of building out low voltage line downstream
towards the spatially distributed demand and medium voltage line upstream towards the source.

The algorithms have been applied to real world rural settings in Africa, where household locations digitized from satellite imagery are prescribed. Results shows that the algorithms provide stable network designs with realistic values and they can be used as powerful tools by planners to rapidly estimate the cost of installing a distribution system.

Read the report by chapter:

Acknowledgements and Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Chapter 1. Energy, Infrastructure and the MDGs

Chapter 2. Lessons Learned and Policy Implications

Chapter 3. Project Operations

Chapter 4. Technical Solutions

Chapter 5. Innovations

Chapter 6. Site Profile Bonsaaso, Ghana

Chapter 7. Site Profile Potou, Senegal

Chapter 8. Site Profile Sauri, Kenya

Chapter 9. Site Profile, Ruhiira, Uganda

Chapter 10. Maintenance and Sustainability

Appendices

Or download the full report here:
Download link to MVP 5-Year Report

The group traveled to the Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya MVP sites, taking time to see construction activities in each and also other MVP related infrastructure such as health posts and a Shared Solar unit. Ruhiira and Mayange had just completed construction of the first new kiosks planned for these systems and the timing of this trip allowed for a commissioning of the first taps during the visit. Each site visit allowed for the JM Eagle team and Earth Institute to meet with local and state representatives to discuss the implications of the current work happening in the MVP sites and also what future needs are and ways to provide for them.

The piped water projects visited will serve populations of 38,000 in Uganda, 19,000 in Rwanda and 6,400 Kenya, all aiming to locate a tap within 500 meters of each household within the district. Each tap will be able to provide at least 40L of safe drinking water to each person per day. The UN defines Reasonable access to water as access being not more than 1000 meters from a house to a public stand post or any other improved drinking water source and providing at least 20 liters per capita per day. View the JMeagle/MVP factsheet to see a summary of all the MVP piped drinking water projects.

MVP’s Energy and Income Generation Specialist, Katie Freeman, lead two workshop sessions on “Meeting Community Needs” in the Millennium Village Project’s stove programs.

The US EPA-sponsored PCIA brings together 460 individuals, nonprofits, governments, research organizations and businesses from around the world dedicated to technical and policy solutions to improved cooking in the developing world. At the invitation of the government of Peru and first lady Pilar Nores, the 2011 PCIA Form hosted 351 partners from 40 countries for five days of workshops, technical presentations and case studies from successful programs around the world aimed at accelerating action that reduces smoke exposure from cooking and heating practices—and ultimately improves the health, livelihood, and quality of life for millions of people around the world.

The MVP’s household stove program is at the core of the MVP’s energy sector and increases access to improved cooking technologies, reducing environmental stress, time/labor burden and indoor air pollution (IAP) associated with traditional cooking. To date, the program has:

•Conducted Controlled Cooking Tests (CCTs) in eight sites across seven countries to test locally made stoves, Envirofit stoves, and StoveTec stoves against the three‐stone fire.
• Launched results‐based household stove programs in six sites across five countries: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mali, Uganda and Nigeria.
• Sold over 7,000 household stoves at a 0%‐50% subsidy.
• Decreased fuelwood collection times by up to 50% for over 1,000 households in Africa

Please find it here:

V. Modi EI profile January 2011

In December 2010, a year after her purchase, MVP visited Madame Aminata Coulibaly’s home and found
that the improved cookstove was still in use. Madame Aminata told us:

“Before getting this stove, I spent 1250CFA (US$2.60) per week on a donkey cart load of wood. We have a large family and this wood would be gone in a week. During the rainy season, all domestic expenses come out of the women’s pockets. We buy the condiments for food. When the children are sick, it falls to us to buy their medicine. The men usually have money during and after the harvest season but sometimes, a husband’s harvest is poor and there’s nothing he can do about it. It then falls to the wives to provide for the family. With the Nafacaman, the wood I used in one week now lasts two weeks. This leaves more money for buying food and
taking care of the children. ”

Read Full Story

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/12/15/charcoal-construction-and-coffins-tracing-links-from-disasters-to-deforestation/

Lakika in the Malian language of Bambara means original. Stoves with the Lakika designation are certified by AMADER – the Malian Agency for the Development of Domestic Energy and Rural Electrification) and GTZ – the German aid organization. To receive Lakika certification, a stove maker has to be trained by an AMADER partner organization. In our region, that partner is MASEF – the Social Action Movement for Education and Training.

My time here will be spent testing the various available stoves to get a clear picture of their efficiencies while conducting focus groups in the cluster to understand the energy needs and cooking practices of the Tiby MV cluster.

After one month of running controlled cooking tests (CCTs) in 30 households throughout the MV cluster of Potou, Senegal, the results are in. The locally manufactured Djaambar had an average specific fuel consumption (SFC) for both couscous and the local dish of rice with fish (thieb jen) on par with that of the imported StoveTec and Enviroft stoves.. However, the women who tested the Djaambar, Stovetec and Envirofits felt that Djaambars were:

1. too expensive,

2. not sold in the cluster, and

3. gave off too much smoke during cooking.

One never knows exactly what to expect from site to site. In Nigeria, there weren’t any locally manufactured stoves available in the clusters, so our decision came down to choosing between two imported stoves. Senegal is a different scenario. There is a local stove market that could be adversely affected by the introduction of an imported stove. Furthermore, with an SFC on par with that of the imported stoves, there is even less justification for introducing an outside player. However, smoke and kitchen health are a major concern. It seems our options are:

1. Focus on business development to figure out ways to reduce the costs that make the stove expensive.

2. Strengthen the local supply chain as part of the focus on business development. This way, people who have wanted to buy the stove are able to find it in their local market.

3. Encourage the manufacturers to improve their design in any way they can to reduce the smoke given off by the stove.

La Luminere Solaire – Potou’s local solar association

La Luminere Solaire set up a table in the middle of the busy Potou market to demonstrate the solar charging capacity and to allow potential customers to try the new lanterns.

Promotional booth in the Potou Market

The lanterns and chargers were displayed to demonstrate the solar charging capacity of the panels and the lanterns ability to charge mobile phones. Villagers were encouraged to charge their phones using the solar power of the demonstration lanterns.

Lantern Panels Charging

Lanterns Charging Cellphones

La Luminere Solaire also gave demonstrations to people passing by, explaining the functions of the lanterns, how to use them, and the advantages of LED lanterns over kerosene and dry-cell batteries. Many stopped to listen to the explanations given by La Luminere Solaire and are eager to purchase the lanterns for their homes and businesses.

La Luminere Solaire Explains Lantern Advantages to Onlookers

People Gather to Examine the Lanterns

People are Encouraged to try the Lanterns

La Luminere Solaire viewed lantern promotion in the market to be such a success, they will continue attending the weekly market to promote and sell the improved LED lanterns to the Potou cluster and beyond.

The controlled cooking test (CCT) is designed to assess the performance of the improved stove relative to the common or traditional stoves that the improved model is meant to replace. Stoves are compared as they perform a standard cooking task that is actually done by local people every day. However, the tests are designed in a way that minimizes the influence of other factors and allows for the test conditions to be reproduced.

In order to pre-screen solutions that would meet the technical specification standards, Columbia University labs tested various available cookstoves in the market to identify the top few in each category. These cookstoves were initially tested for their heat transferring abilities, general quality of manufacturing as well as for overall efficiency. In order to establish the performance of these improved stoves in the context of the Millennium Villages, the stoves also undergo Controlled Cooking Tests (CCTs) in the Millennium Village (MVs), testing the stoves for efficiency in the local context.

Click here for full MVP Household Stove Testing Protocol – Controlled Cooking Test (CCT)

Things that are helping make sense of the data include:

1. Take pictures of every pot during the test. This will come in handy later if you need to know what kind of wood was used, the condition of the fire and how much tending was or wasn’t provided.

2. Standardize cooking practices as much as possible. With steaming and frying and boiling in fried oil etc, it’s necessary to make sure that everyone is doing the same thing. Most importantly, when making Couscous, we noticed that some people waited for the water to boil before they began steaming while others placed their Couscous on cold water and then boiled the water. Also, most people cover their Couscous with cloth, one house covered with plastic. Things like this could affect data in unusual ways.

3. Do more tests. While the first 12 tests have provided some interesting data, we are learning that cooking practices may affect stove performance. With subsequent tests, we’ll pay more attention to this intriguing development.

On one side of the globe there is a manufacturer producing energy efficient solar lanterns. On the other side of the globe there is someone who could greatly benefit from owning one. The trick is finding a way to connect the two in a sustainable fashion. In March 2010, I set out to do just that; help to bring efficient lighting to Millennium Village Communities in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali. I really had no idea when I began just how complicated developing a sustainable supply chain could be, and the reality is that I still learn something new every day. Through a series of posts I would like to take you through the work that I, in conjunction with the local Millennium Village Project Site teams, have been doing to achieve our goal of a sustainable supply chain for solar lantern technologies. This post will focus on working with community vendors, one of my favorite parts of the job.

Lantern Introduction:

Travel to any market in or around an MVP site and there you will find hundreds of different flashlights and lanterns. They come in every shape and size and nearly every imaginable color. Some of the most interesting lanterns available have colorful pictures, plastic flowers in their casings, and, to my surprise, flashlights that blink different colors while they play you a song. The market is filled with distinct lighting options; their only commonality being their incredibly low quality.

My first task when arriving in a community is to take different brands of solar lanterns that have been quality-tested in the Earth Institute labs in New York, introduce them to the communities, and describe to communities all of the ways in which the solar lanterns differ from the low quality imports available in the markets. It would be nearly impossible to go door-to-door showing the lanterns to every household, so we needed to find a creative approach. We found that the best way to get the word into remote parts of the MVP clusters is to approach people already in the business of selling flashlights at their community shops or through community associations that focus on clean energy.

The first time I arrived in an MV site, I walked to Vivian’s shop in the Bonsaaso cluster lanterns in-hand. Vivian has a small shop in a highly trafficked location and sells household goods, including lanterns and flashlights. My plan was to show her the lanterns, and ask her if she would be interested in keeping them in her shop for week for people to stop and see. My MVP colleagues and I were graciously invited to take a seat and show her what we had brought. No sooner did we have the solar lanterns out of the boxes, than a crowd began to form. Nearly 20 villagers spilled out of Vivian’s shop and while we showed the growing crowd the lanterns we had brought with us, the questions began.

“How long does it stay lit?”

“How much do they cost?”

“Where are they made?”

After everyone had had a chance to see the lanterns, we asked Vivian if she would be willing to keep four different lantern models, and allow people who visited her shop to see them and to decide which one they liked the best and might consider purchasing. She was happy to oblige.

Since my first day at Vivian’s shop, I have taken lanterns to vendors and associations throughout sites in Ghana and Nigeria, and the reaction is nearly always the same: gracious shop owners, crowds of people, questions about quality and price and excitement.

Lantern Displays:

After a vendor or association member has agreed to display a lantern, our program supplies a set of lanterns for them to use and display as they see fit. Some people light their storefronts, others walk the streets displaying the lantern to neighbors and friends, and most actually use the lanterns in their stores and homes in the evening. The most important thing is that people are using them as they see fit; After all, everyone needs lighting for different reasons. After roughly a week, we go back into the communities to collect the lanterns and ask the vendors and community members for their impressions. The results are often striking, and in cases people describe things that we had never even considered. In one village, community members did not like the way the manufacturing of the solar lantern had left a slight seam in the plastic. Others said they really preferred the lanterns that weighed more. In one case, community members charged the lanterns and pit them against each other to see which one would stay lit the longest.

I am always interested to hear about people’s impressions; these are factors that simply cannot be tested for in a lab. Furthermore, after a week of making lanterns available to community members, there is often a greater trust of the product itself, having seen it in action, and noticing that there was no need to purchase batteries or kerosene for lighting that week.

Technical Trainings and Project Design:

As is often the case, those vendors who displayed lanterns, are interested in selling them, and we like to prepare them the best that we can to answer many of the same questions that we are often asked. As such, a forum is chosen, and anyone who would like to attend is invited to take part in a solar technical training course. We cover the basics of how the solar panel works, the best ways to charge the lanterns, the different functions of the lanterns that the community would like to see made available and troubleshooting techniques.
At the end of the training seminars, we like to give the vendors the opportunity to discuss how they envision the lantern program progressing. We try to cover what types of support they will need to sell lanterns and what the most feasible way is for them to restock their lantern supplies. We attempt to incorporate all of the feedback into the overall program in order not to deviate from systems that are already in place and to utilize the experiences and input of those whom I always refer to as “the experts”.
The only question left after the training is “when are the lanterns arriving?”

The answer to which I will cover in the next post on working with distributors and manufactures.

The basic approach for introducing solar charged, LED based lanterns to the Millennium Villages is based on a private sector led effort to create and strengthen local institutions. This also means MVP employs a full-cost (no-subsidy) method that adds marginal costs at each segment of the supply chain so that the final cost represents the true cost of the lanterns. The approach includes MVP business development support for supporting a national supply chain with key interventions to build capacity of the vendors at the community level and strengthen various aspects of the chain. The core premise of this program is an enterprise-driven approach that spurs entrepreneurship as well as aids in job creation at the local level. The primary source of entrepreneur stimulus and job creation will be through the local vendors. Lantern sales become an indirect form of job creation through the local administrative unit and the vendor program.

The ultimate goal of the MVP lantern program is to spur the creation of a self-sustaining commercial supply chain through a phased approach where initial technical support and oversight would be replaced by strong commercial supply chain that delivers energy services across Sub-Saharan Africa. For long-term sustainability, village businesses should have a stake in the continuation of the program, with the wholesaler and retailers making a profit from each sale.

Key Lessons Learned from Lantern Program Implementation in the Millennium Development Village Clusters

Importance of “Project Launch”. Early in MVP cookstove project rollout MVP discovered the importance of having a person dedicated to introducing the lantern programs in the villages. At the onset, launching the MVP lantern program is time-consuming, and developing a supply chain, costing strategy and local distribution strategy requires regular communication with national and international stakeholders. Due to the demanding workloads of other MVP staff members, it is difficult for them to invest the necessary amount of time. A lantern program specialist dedicated to tailored program development and project launch should help mobilize the community behind a new product and develop a site-specific supply model to make the program sustainable. After this initial model-development and launch the program requires only minimal oversight, and can be done by site teams.

Reliable supply chains are crucial. The lantern program can only begin if ordered lanterns arrive in the sites and will only continue if lanterns can be sourced reliably. MVP sites learned this lesson the hard way when one lantern order, the brand highly preferred by villagers in all field testing, arrived on site months after the program launch. The lag between introducing the product to the village and having the product available to sell was detrimental to the program’s momentum and lanterns sales. Having a reliable commercial supply chain that can deliver lanterns quickly and inexpensively to remote sites in rural Africa is crucial for the success of any lantern program.

Find a sub-distributor of lantern products. Many lantern companies partner with national or regional sub-distributors to sell their products locally in many African countries. Identifying a lantern sub-distributor in the region before project launch is vital for the development of a strong supply chain and facilitating a rapid transition to a community-led project. Because these distributors import lanterns in large quantities using sea freight, they are often able to get them for much less than it would cost a small project to air-ship lanterns. Additionally, many of these sub-distributors are relatively new, and eager to establish new regional partnerships.

Create an accurate pricing model. In order to create a sustainable business model, the lanterns must be sold at full market cost without subsidy. This includes the price of purchase from the wholesaler or the sub-distributer, all taxes (if applicable), all transportation and warehousing costs and a vendor markup. Failing to include any of these costs will result in a cost model when lanterns are priced artificially low, and a need to increase the price of the lanterns. MVP experience shows a strong resistance of village cooperatives to sell lanterns at prices higher than those quoted in the original project launch.

Strengthen community business skills through support and training. While some of the selected lantern vendors may be shop owners, others may be ambulant vendors. In both cases it proves prudent to provide training in lantern use and function as well as basic accounting and record keeping skills. In the MVP project, it is important to know who purchased the lanterns in order to be able to later go back and survey these clients. These were skills that had to be taught.

Provide simple technical training. MVP has found that at the onset of the lantern programs the majority of vendors are not familiar with solar technologies or the styles of batteries found in the lanterns. It has proved important to train both vendors and, if possible, community members, to charge their lanterns adequately and not to overuse them. Simple mistakes, such as not fully charging a battery, or allowing it to go into deep discharge, can quickly damage the batteries and decrease the life of the lantern.

Choose reliable vendors. In a program where vendors are loaned lanterns as working capital, there is always a risk of non-repayment by the vendors. This can be partially avoided by measures such as having community members and family members vouch for, or essentially “guarantee” the vendor, or by asking vendors to put a down-payment on the lanterns, to be returned upon repayment of the initial capital. In MVP experience, choosing reliable vendors and having a strong incentives system in place to ensure repayment can lower the instances of non-repayment of the project’s capital investment.

Provide continuing technical assistance. Although the lantern launch lasts only a month, technical assistance must be continued through the first several cycles of selling, ordering and purchasing. In MVP experience, burgeoning cooperatives often do not have the capacity or motivation to place orders at the beginning without site team support. After these first few cycles of ordering and selling the lanterns, the site teams assume that a strong enough connection will be established between the sub-distributor and the local cooperatives and vendors that limited support will be required from the project in the future.

Create in-country partnerships. New emerging technologies and the popularity of new, young solar companies, such as D-light Design, have contributed to a boom in the number of solar-focused organizations operating in Africa. Creating relationships with other in-country organizations organized around similar objectives can serve both for knowledge sharing and, in some cases, actually allow for bulk transport of products, thus lowering shipping prices.

Effects of market spoilage. Poor quality local lanterns can have an effect on the initial popularity of even high-quality lanterns. It is important to recognize if any of these biases are present in the sites before launching the program – efforts can be made accordingly in marketing and promotion to distinguish the new lanterns from poor quality lanterns. It is also important to ensure that the lanterns arriving are in good working order, otherwise risking market spoilage for the introduced lanterns.

Importance of a warranty for faulty lanterns. Occasionally lanterns arrive in sites with faulty batteries. It is important that vendors can return these lanterns to an in-country sub-distributor under a pre-specified warranty. This gives cooperatives confidence that the lanterns they receive will be functional and it ensures there is an accountable party in the event lantern malfunction.

Importance of framing the project. During each project launch it has been important for MVP to emphasize the program as a business, and the community’s participation as the opportunity for people to either expand existing businesses or start new ones. This project framing helps the community understand that the lanterns are not give-aways and that the lanterns are opportunities for small businesses, shifting ownership of the project to the cooperative and vendors.

Seasons matter. Feedback from site teams and preliminary sales records indicate that sales change with the harvest season, depending on the amount of cash available in the villages. The time of year will differ by country, site and crops grown. When planning a project launch, it is important to examine the time of year when people in the village will have available income and use this as a proxy for demand.

Download full paper here

In MVP experience across several sites we have seen that there is a strong demand for efficient cooking products across rural Africa. The rural populations understand the value of fuelwood savings and are willing to pay for their purchase – to a certain extent of affordability. However, access to these products and services in remote regions remains a big challenge.

The motivation behind introducing biomass cookstoves to the Millennium Villages was to identify appropriate technologies that not only provide a highly efficient combustion (thereby reducing the stress on the environment) but also to do it in a manner that does not deviate a lot from traditional cooking preferences.  Following initial testing in the lab at Columbia University, several selected brands of cookstoves underwent detailed field testing using a process called the controlled cooking test (CCT) protocol. The process of introducing new technologies to the community in the MVP was based on ensuring that accurate quantitative efficiencies (usually between 35%-40% fuelwood savings have been reported) could be established for each cookstove under field conditions, using locally sourced fuelwood and food items, and ensuring buy-in from the community.

MVP staff then trained 10-15 cookstove vendors (frequently shopkeepers, youth groups or women’s groups) to learn the technical basics of the cookstoves, best practices in using them, the pricing for each model as well as to be present to answer any further questions from the community regarding the cookstove program. After training, vendors are ready to begin sales in the community.

Long term sustainability of the program will depend upon the successful incorporation of commercial partners who can extend the program and replace the current assistance provided by the project site teams and take the program beyond the borders of the Millennium Villages to other parts of the country. Furthermore, this partnership would be necessary for capturing the carbon revenue potential of the cookstoves that can be used to subsidize the cookstoves and increase affordability for the masses.

Key Lessons Learned:

Stove Program Implementation

in the

Millennium Development Villages

Not all stoves are made equally. Although locally made stovesareavailable in many countries, most do not have the uniformity or fuel saving capacity of alternatives that are manufactured industrially.  Because locally made stoves are often made by hand, there is a large variability in their construction, durability and efficiency.  Additionally, although local stoves may have benefits over a 3-stone fire, often these are smaller than claimed and do not compare to other stoves on the market that have been manufactured industrially.

Importance of testing under local conditions. When testing a stove’s fuel efficiency it is important to test stoves under local conditions. Because local foods, local cooking practices and wood varieties vary across countries, and often even within countries, fuel savings recorded through CCTs can vary from country to country. MVP has found that generally stoves are ranked according to efficiency in the same order across countries, but the fuel efficiency against the three-stone fire can vary as much as 15%.  Additionally, in these circumstances stove testing becomes an event where villagers can witness the fuel savings of the improved stoves and this helps promote the product in the community.

Allow women to test the stoves for several weeks.

MVP hasfound that allowing households to keep and use the stoves over the course of two weeks helps build confidence in the new product and allows women to see how it can positively impact their lives.  MVP employs a model where stoves are loaned to women for two weeks and at the end of two weeks they have the option to buy.

Create a demand-driven price model. MVP villagers across project countries have disparate abilities to pay for an improved cookstove.  It is important to gauge a community’s willingness to pay for a stove and price the stoves accordingly. The MVP model prices the cookstove between $10 – $16 and subsidizes the remaining stove cost.  In the future, MVP expects that the currently subsidized portion of the stove will be covered by carbon financing through the voluntary market.

Seasons matter. MVP site teams have discovered that seasons impact villagers’ demand for stoves at certain times of the year. Site teams note that communities often express greater desires for stoves during the rainy seasons when dry fuel wood is harder to gather and firewood to purchase is more expensive on the local markets.

Availability of free or inexpensive fire wood impacts demand.

A site’s local biodiversity can have an impact on the popularity and adoption of improved stoves.  Because one of the benefits of the improved cookstove is the reduction of fuelwood needed for any particular cooking event, villagers who freely acquire abundant firewood close to their homes often find the stoves less attractive.  Deforested areas, areas with scarce fuel wood, or conflict affected areas where collecting wood can be dangerous may find more village demand than those with reliable, sustainable fuelwood sources.

Strengthen community business skills through support and training. While some of the selected stove vendors may be shop owners, others may be ambulant vendors.  In both cases it proves prudent to provide training in stove use and function as well as basic accounting and record keeping skills. In the MVP project, it is important to know who purchased the stoves in order to be able to later go back and survey these clients. Later, it may become valuable to identify stove-purchasers for carbon monitoring purposes and many of these record keeping skills must be taught.

Choose reliable vendors. In a program where vendors are loaned stoves as working capital, there is always a risk of non-repayment by the vendors.  This can be partially avoided by measures such as having community members and family members vouch for, or essentially “guarantee” the vendor, or by asking vendors to put a down-payment on the cookstoves, to be returned upon repayment of the initial capital.  In MVP experience, choosing reliable vendors and having a strong incentives system in place to ensure repayment can lower the instances of non-repayment of the project’s capital investment. Furthermore, involving local community heads at the onset of the program often affords the option of going to them in the event of a defaulter. These community have proven to be allies in ensuring the success of the program.

Provide continuing technical assistance. Partially because the stove program is a subsidized initiative, technical assistance must be provided to the stove cooperative through the first several cycles of selling, ordering and purchasing. In MVP experience, burgeoning cooperatives often do not have the capacity or motivation to place orders at the beginning without site team support. After these first few cycles of ordering and selling, site teams assume that a strong enough connection will be established between the sub-distributor and the local cooperatives and vendors thus limiting the support required from the project in the future.

Create in-country partnerships.  Improved stove technologies, growing SMS capacity, emphasis on carbon emissions reduction and the focus on stoves as a way to improve women and girl’s health, have all contributed to a boom in the number of stove programs operating in Africa.  Creating relationships with other in-country organizations organized around similar objectives can serve both for knowledge sharing and, in some cases, actually allow for bulk transport of products, thus lowering shipping prices.

Size matters:

The primary feedback MVP has received from users is that the stoves are often too small for the pot sizes used in the villages. MVP field staff suggests that this has an effect on the rate of adoption of improved cookstoves in villages. Most families cook for over ten people at each meal and they often ask for stoves that are large enough to accommodate their needs. Survey responses show that most families will continue using three-stone fires for boiling water, cooking large meals, and other activities that require a large pot.

Investigate local capacity to manufacture stoves: Artisans at some sites have begun fashioning replicas of the rocket stoves introduced by MVP. This could work for or against the progress already being made at these sites. On one hand, making the stoves locally would significantly reduce costs and ensure long-term sustainability of the practice of using improved cookstoves. On the other hand, if stoves cannot be manufactured to consistent specifications, their efficiencies cannot be vouched for, which could work against the possibility of future carbon financing in these communities. Partnering with a stove manufacturer, for example StoveTec, to give proper training on best practices for designing and manufacturing stoves could ensure that if stoves will be copied, they continue providing similar benefits already in progress.