Reuters story on Eritrean stove development

["Ron Larson" <ronallarson@qwest.net>]

 Stovers:

	A few days ago I signed up for the free environmental news service at
www.planetark.org  (because I had found some of the best summaries of the
WSSD there).  Yesterday's news included the following Reuter's article about
GTZ-sponsored stove work in Eritrea.


	The GTZ stove researcher mentioned is Paul Mushamba - who I met in
Johanneburg - but too briefly.  Can anyone provide an e-mail address for
Paul?  I think we would all benefit from hearing more about the technical
details of this particular stove - which probably has a large (60 cm?)
ceramic griddle - at least that is the traditional mogogo material.  At this
price, and from the description, I guess that most of the stove is ceramic
as well.   But there is also a metal door mentioned  - which intrigues me.
I have not previously seen such for Ethiopian and Eritrean enjira
("pancake") stoves.

	 Anyone able to help get this request to Paul?  Grant?  (The address I have
given for Agnes Klingshirn hasn't worked for me.)

	This is another example of the lead that GTZ has on most development
agencies.

Ron



FEATURES - Eco-friendly stoves solve age old Eritrean problem
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ERITREA: September 17, 2002


ADI KUSHET, Eritrea - In a scene familiar across the tiny African state of
Eritrea, four-year-old Kessanet plays on the floor as her grandmother cooks
sour pancakes on a wood-fired stove.


But this home is different - the child's eyes are not watering from smoke
billowing from the fire and the stove is burning far fewer logs than
traditional stoves.
The air in the house is so clear that the walls remain white and guests can
watch a Chuck Norris kung fu video as they chat with the child's
grandmother, Kebedsh Habte, 57, without being troubled by choking smoke.

Eritrea is hoping a new stove design will do its part to fight the
deforestation and lung problems caused by cooking fires used by an estimated
2.5 billion people in the developing world, according to United Nations
estimates.

"I am free from smoke," Kebedsh said in her home in the village of Adi
Kushet, on the edge of Eritrea's capital Asmara. "I am free from lung
problems. I am free from eye problems."

According to United Nations figures, indoor cooking fires kill an estimated
2.5 million women and children a year through respiratory infections from
inhaling fumes.

Eritrean officials say that with their new stove design - which uses
insulation to conserve heat and a metal chimney to suck in air and funnel
smoke - Kebedsh, and other women like her, could cut the amount of wood used
by half.

The scheme aims to cut thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by
burning often scarce supplies of wood more efficiently and save 366 kg (800
lbs) of firewood per household per year.


FUEL FRIENDLY

Paul Mushamba, energy adviser for the Programme for Biomass Energy
Conservation in Southern Africa, has been working on a project partly funded
by Germany to introduce a whole range of energy efficient clay and metal
stoves, cutting smoke output.

"Some of the designs are really low cost, which puts them within reach of
the very poor," he said.

Mushamba has spent three years visiting communities across southern Africa
and says the best choice of stove depends very much on locally available
materials and cost.

Often simply showing people how to make a small clay stove with walls,
replacing three large loose stones placed around a fire, can produce huge
wood savings for less than a dollar.

However, the challenge in Eritrea, as with many environmental projects
working with households in Africa, is to spread the impact from a few
villages to the entire country of 3.7 million.

The aim is to convert all stoves in rural areas into the new fuel-efficient
design, which means reaching out to 500,000 households, mostly in remote
areas of the Red Sea state of barren plains and parched mountain ranges.

But Eritrea is still struggling to repair the legacy of a 30-year liberation
struggle and a 1998-2000 border war with its much larger neighbour Ethiopia,
meaning progress is gradual.

"We are only in the early stages," said Afeworki Tesfazion, director of
energy research at the Eritrean Research and Training Centre. "We are yet to
reach many, many people."

The government says the cheap, simple and home-grown nature of the project
is just the kind to thrive in a country fiercely proud of its tradition of
self-reliance, although the scheme does receive funding from Britain.

But in a country where many people cannot read, spreading the idea is far
from easy. The government has so far trained 223 women to pass on
information about the stove by word of mouth to some of the remotest area of
the country, Afeworki said.

The stoves are designed to be affordable, costing 180 nakfa ($14) to
purchase the chimney pipes and various metal components such as a metal
furnace door. Villagers can pay for the pieces over a year under a credit
scheme.

"It's a slow process at first," said Afeworki. "But it is gaining momentum
now."


EXPERTS IN CLAY

The project's organisers say Eritrean women, who grow up learning to use
clay, will have little difficulty in making the new eco-friendly version of
the traditional "mogogo" stoves.

Women have long been taught by their mothers to make everything from pots to
sofas out of clay before leaving their parents' home and making a house with
their husbands.

"The skills are already there," said Afeworki, pointing as three women began
making one of the cooking furnaces at a home in the village of Adi Gembelo,
15 km (nine miles) south of the capital.

As the women worked lumps of clay into the shape of a new stove, its surface
appeared so smooth that it looked as if it had been finished with a metal
tool rather than fingers.

Mushamba agrees that dissemination of skills is key. His project in southern
Africa aims to empower local people by getting them to produce the stoves
with local materials and then sell them in surrounding areas for a small
commercial gain.

"It's a slow process but when communities identify which stove is good for
them, and see what it means for fuel savings the reception is good," he told
Reuters.




Story by Taro Matsuoka


REUTERS NEWS SERVICE





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