Clean cooking boosts health, livelihoods, and environment

Smoke exposure from cooking using wood fires and other traditional fuels has serious impacts on household health and the climate, due to deforestation and the release of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from burnt forest biomass.  

In Cambodia, where over 60 per cent of families rely on firewood for cooking, more than 11 million people are exposed to indoor air pollution annually and around 14,000 of them die from this cause every year. The lives of many more people, especially women and children, are blighted by smoke-related health conditions that reduce their overall quality and length of life. 

Three projects run by SNV and implemented with partners are seeking to address this problem by promoting smoke-free cookstoves, powered by electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Together, the initiatives take a multi-pronged approach, combining a market-based strategy with efforts to bring about behaviour and policy change. 

In Cambodia, these initiatives include the Higher Tier Cooking Component (HTCC), which focuses on developing stronger supply chains for clean cookstoves in rural areas; the Clean and Improved Cooking (CIC) programme in the Mekong Region, which seeks to build an enabling environment; and the Smoke-Free Village (SFV) project – based on bringing about behaviour change in local communities. 

By engaging directly with local communities, village leaders, schools, health workers, and religious figures, strong progress is being made in raising awareness of the dangers of open-fire cooking. Simultaneously, efforts are underway to develop the market for smoke-free cookstoves, and a dialogue has been initiated with government officials at district, provincial, and national levels to promote clean cooking as a priority. 

Addressing gender inequalities and improving the livelihoods of rural women is an important focus of the smoke-free cookstove strategy in Cambodia. Collecting wood, cleaning cooking pots and tending the fire are duties mainly carried out by girls and women, as is collecting firewood, which is heavy work, but also often unsafe in isolated areas. Children, especially girls, are often kept out of school to help with fuel collection. While women in Cambodia do most of the cooking, household buying power is generally in the hands of men and women, so an essential component is ensuring that both genders are included in awareness-raising activities. 

In terms of livelihoods, many of those benefiting from increased demand for clean cooking products are women, who manage 70 per cent of the shops selling cookstoves in Cambodia. Women who buy the clean cookstoves find that they have more time to devote to other pursuits, including income-generating activities.  

Prak Earnsrey is one such woman, a resident of a small village in Cambodia, she has swapped her open fire for clean cooking methods. ‘Using an electric or gas stove is much more convenient than using wood. I no longer have to spend time and energy cutting wood, especially after a long workday,’ she said. ‘It has made cooking easy and efficient, giving me more time for other things.’ 

And Earnsrey is not alone. Results of all three initiatives, have been closely monitored, and evidence shows that they are already making a difference. Since its launch in 2021, the SFV project is being rolled out in 500 villages, reaching 500,000 people.

The approach to clean energy transition, which evidence shows is resulting in meaningful change, is based on the SFV behaviour change communication (BCC) training model. This entails building the capacity of local authorities and key figures in the community – or change-makers – to communicate the benefits of clean cooking and dispel any reservations on the part of potential users, such as mistaken perceptions about high costs and difficulties in using the technology. 

The flagship programme involves raising awareness through a broad range of community-based activities, including group meetings, games, door-to-door visits, cooking demonstrations, and sessions at schools to convey the message about the dangers and disadvantages of using traditional firewood cookstoves.  

Exchanges are also encouraged across villages - neighbouring authorities compare progress between villages and promote learning and a spirit of competition. In communities where this participatory formula has been adopted, the sense of achievement is palpable. When homes switch to smoke-free cookstoves, the entire village engages in a celebration and a plaque is unveiled to mark the occasion. 

At the policy level, one important outcome of the programme has been the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooking energy with Cambodia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy and the development of a national clean cooking strategy. 

'The success of this programme has been reflected in the large numbers of people who are now buying the clean cookstoves, without any grant or subsidy, and especially in the strong decline in the use of traditional stoves,' said Bastiaan Teune, Energy Sector Lead for SNV in Cambodia. 'We aim for collective change and so far, people have really responded to the campaign.'

The longer-term objective is to scale the programme up and out, elsewhere in Cambodia and in Lao PDR, Mozambique, and Nepal, where the model was launched in 2023, as well as in a number of other African and Asian countries that have expressed interest in adopting the SFV BCC strategy.   

In Cambodia, monitoring reveals that the overall campaign for a transition to clean cooking methods has produced real impacts. To date, households have bought 15,000 electric and 32,300 LPG stoves; significantly, 12,000 wood-burning stoves are no longer in use.  

For the market-focused HTCC project, monitoring shows that it is on track to deliver its expected outcomes by the end of 2025, including 26,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂eq) of GHG emissions avoided; 20,000 cooking stoves sold by enterprises; 1,000 biodigesters installed by enterprises; 20 enterprises with improved access to financial services; 25 new jobs created; and 88,200 people with access to clean cooking. 

Use of these clean cookstoves involves a significant reduction in the need to cut trees for fuel-wood, so the shift will have an overall positive impact on deforestation and consequent GHG emissions. In Cambodia, 2 million households burn a total of 8 million kg of firewood each day, while worldwide, up to 34 percent of fuel-wood harvested is unsustainable, contributing to forest degradation, deforestation and climate change.   

Among those participating in the HTCC project, both enabling and benefiting from these transitions, are small-scale private sector actors involved in the supply chain for clean cooking products and services, who have seen their revenues increase as a result of rising demand and improved distribution. 

'The HTCC project has expanded my business and transformed my life,' said Him Bunheng, a businessman from Baseth District. 'The hands-on support and training have empowered me to contribute to my community's well-being while promoting sustainable, clean cooking energy solutions.'