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The United States Commitment to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves - Year Two Progress Report

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In honor of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’ second anniversary, the United States is pleased to announce that total investment in support of the Alliance and clean cookstoves has reached up to $114 million. This investment represents a nearly $10 million increase over the past year and will help the Alliance achieve its goal of enabling 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020. The new commitments target a wide range of work, including: climate and cookstoves research; expansion of existing health research to include cookstoves; investments in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Sudan; additional health evaluation efforts in Kenya and Guatemala; and small business funding. All U.S. federal agencies are meeting or exceeding their commitment to the Alliance. The six agencies that were part of the original U.S. commitment have invested over $35 million to date, meeting 70% of their original five-year, $50 million commitment.

The State Department, under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has undertaken a wide range of diplomatic activities to advance the Alliance and the cookstoves sector.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Extended partnership with countries across the globe, including China, South Africa, Sweden, Afghanistan, Laos, and Mexico
  • Engaged with U.S. embassies abroad to support Alliance activities in priority countries
  • Developed strategy to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants from cookstoves in collaboration with the new Climate and Clean Air Coalition

Original 5-Year Commitment: $370,000

Updated Commitment: $1.02 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $1.02 million

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that its Partnership for Clean Indoor Air (PCIA) – a forerunner of the Alliance launched in 2002 – has been formally integrated into the Alliance, with particular focus on the PCIA network of 600 partner organizations. PCIA partners reported selling nearly 4 million cookstoves in 2011, improving the lives of 20 million people.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Committed to award $3.5 million for research on the air quality and climatic benefits of interventions for cookstoves and residential burning
  • Led efforts to develop interim International Organization for Standardization guidelines for performance ratings of cookstoves for fuel use/efficiency, emissions, and safety
  • Launched state-of-the-art cookstove testing lab in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and undertook a third round of stove testing of 20 cooking technologies and fuels
  • Held field testing and stove performance workshops in Bangladesh and Uganda

Original 5-Year Commitment: $6.0 million

Updated Commitment[1]: $10.3 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $3.7 million

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation will provide up to $50 million in debt financing or insurance that meet their credit and lending standards over three years to support projects that provide clean, consistent, and affordable access to energy and energy savings through the manufacture, sale, and purchase of cookstoves.

Key Second Year Accomplishment: Committed to provide $10 million of debt financing to MicroEnergy Credits of India to support their efforts to assist qualified microfinance institutions launch and scale clean energy lending programs, including high-efficiency stoves. OPIC is reviewing eight additional potential cookstoves deals.

Original 5-Year Commitment: $50 million

Updated Commitment: $50 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $10 million

The National Institutes of Health are committed to support health research and training to improve the health and lives of those at risk from household burning of solid fuels.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Provided $5.8 million worth of awards for health research studies on cookstoves, including randomized controlled cookstove trials in Ghana and Nepal
  • Committed to invest $1.7 million to expand existing NIH grants to incorporate cookstoves;
  • Created a household air pollution training institute for leading health researchers
  • Results published from the NIH-funded RESPIRE study in Guatemala – this was the first-ever randomized control trial to study the health benefits of using improved stoves

Original 5-Year Commitment: $24.7 million

Updated Commitment: $27.09 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $13.4 million

The U.S. Agency for International Development’s programs support the adoption of affordable stoves that require less fuel to meet household energy needs and release fewer pollutants, as a means to improve health, reduce environmental degradation, mitigate climate change, foster economic growth, and empower women.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Supported market development initiatives for efficient cookstoves in Haiti
  • Supported efforts to locally produce and distribute energy efficient cookstoves in Nigeria
  • Funded research to identify the factors that encourage families to purchase and sustain use of efficient cookstoves in India and Uganda
  • Provided support for the manufacturing and distribution of cookstoves within refugee and displaced persons camps and nearby communities in Ethiopia and Darfur, Sudan
  • Studied the emissions and fuel use of a locally manufactured fuel-efficient stove in Kenya

Original 5-Year Commitment: $9.0 million

Updated Commitment: $12.28 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $11.38 million

The Department of Energy is spurring development of low emission, high efficiency cookstoves through research in areas such as combustion, heat transfer, and materials development.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Provided $2.5 million to support the development of innovative cookstove designs to burn wood or crop residues more efficiently and cleanly than open fires and traditional stoves
  • Awarded four grants ($600,000 total) under Small Business Innovation Research program to support small, U.S. businesses developing advanced cookstoves and monitoring devices

Original 5-Year Commitment: $12.5 million

Updated Commitment: $13.2 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $3.2 million

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are evaluating cookstove programs to better understand their public health benefits and key determinants of adoption.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Conducted an evaluation in Kenya to determine the acceptability and adoption of modern cookstoves and identify options for a follow-on health study of severe childhood pneumonia and low birth weight in homes using improved stoves
  • Concluded a study in Guatemala to assess the effects of in utero and infant exposures to indoor air pollutants on growth and neurodevelopment

Original 5-Year Commitment: $1.0 million

Updated Commitment: $3.16 million

Funding Allocated through Year 2 of the Alliance: $3.16 million

Additional Federal Agencies Providing Support:

  • In 2007, prior to the launch of the Alliance, the Millennium Challenge Corporation committed to an investment in Mongolia which remains the largest single cookstoves-related investment of the U.S. government: $45.3 million focused on economic growth from energy efficiency and improved air quality.
  • The Peace Corps trains community members and masons to select, construct and maintain improved cookstoves, provides ongoing support to sustain use of these cookstoves, and helps low-income families, schools, and others access grants to reduce the cost of them.
  • The Department of Agriculture is lending its technical expertise on key policy questions facing the cookstoves sector and helping align the Alliance with ongoing international efforts that promote the sustainable production and use of clean burning biomass cooking fuels, as part of its global strategy to optimize natural resource conservation and agricultural productivity.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is partnering with scientists in other countries to assess the climate benefits of switching to clean cookstoves by: developing instrumentation quantifying corresponding changes in soot emissions; characterizing the properties of the soot produced; and evaluating the climate benefits of soot emission reductions.

Alliance Progress: Through a wide range of activities to build the sector and support organizations that can scale production, distribution, and adoption, the Alliance is on track to achieve its goal of 100 million households adopting clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020.

Key Second Year Accomplishments include:

  • Developed the ground-breaking sector strategy Igniting Change: A Strategy for Universal Adoption of Clean Cookstoves and Fuels and created a comprehensive ten-year strategic business plan to catalyze a thriving global market for clean cookstoves and fuels.
  • Set six priority countries for Phase I of the business plan: Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. The selection of these countries followed stakeholder consultations in 18 countries and detailed market assessments of this sector in 16 nations.
  • Developed consensus guidelines and initiated standards for cookstove efficiency, safety, and emissions through an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) process.
  • Raised over $29 million in total for the Alliance Secretariat and its grant programs, and leveraged more than $120 million in parallel funding to spur advances in clean cooking.
  • Commissioned $4 million to build the evidence base for the sector by supporting 6 regional testing centers and research in child survival, climate change, and gender empowerment.
  • Developed a stove performance inventory containing data from over 600 unique tests to compare lab and field results and set credible standards.
  • Grew partnership base from 185 to more than 400 organizations, including 16 new national partners: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Colombia, Ghana, Guatemala, Italy, Laos, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, South Africa, Sweden, Uganda, and Vietnam.

*For all agencies, all future investments are subject to appropriations.

[1] For all agencies, all future investments are subject to appropriations.