The Coordinator for the Organisation for Indigenous initiative and Sustainability Ghana, ORGIIS, Julius Awaregya has described as worrying, the unsustainable use of wood as fuel has contributed to environmental degradation.
He further attributed the level of energy poverty of women and girls in rural communities in Africa to unpaid labour cost for the time women and girls spend most of their day performing basic subsistence task including time consuming and physically draining tasks of biomass.
Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of a stakeholders workshop in the Kassena Nankana Municipality, Mr Awaregya disclosed that, the partnership with SNV and the Netherland Development Organisation (ORGIIS) is working to mitigate the energy poverty that most developmental policies fails to address.
He further indicated that improved cook stoves contribute to poverty alleviation and vulnerability reduction in Ghana.
Despite the potential health and social benefits, adoption and use of improved cook stove has been low due to price for target population.
Mr Awarega explained how ORGIIS has been supporting rural women groups to have access to these improved stoves.
A price, peers and perception study protocol was conducted in the Kassena Nankana Municipality to address the limited opportunities for households to learn about the cookstove through peers and perceptions that these technologies are not appropriate for local cooking needs.
The Gender Desk Officer and Planning Officer at the Kassena Nankana Municipal Assembly Sheila Banpkiabu called on ORGIIS to trains local artisans to develop same technology for local use and hinted the Assembly plans to liaise with government and other agencies to give subsidies on the cooking stove.
Story Filed By: Emmanuel Akayeti
