Category Archives: Health

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Clean-Burning Cookstoves for Developing Countries

Posted on: September 29, 2010

Written by: ninulya

Categories: Cookstoves, Funding, GACC, Gender, Health, International Development, News


Source: The New York Times, published Sept 28, 2010 To the Editor: Re “Developing Nations to Get Clean-Burning Cookstoves” (news article, Sept. 21): It is great news that the United States will provide $50 million to help provide clean-burning cookstoves for villages in Asia, Africa and South America. In addition to the appalling health risks (1.9 million deaths a year due to inhaling smoke from open fires) and the environmental devastation caused by cutting down trees for fuel, women and girls risk rape and sexual violence when they gather wood to cook or sell. This is particularly true in refugee camps … Continue reading →

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Struggle to agree UN summit kickstart for Millennium goals

Posted on: September 9, 2010

Written by: Jean Kim Chaix

Categories: Health, Human development, International Development, News, Policy, Poverty


By Tim Witcher (AFP) – 1 day ago UNITED NATIONS — World powers are moving slowly toward an accord on the strategy to be embraced at a looming United Nations summit aiming to get the lofty Millennium Development Goals back on track. Ten years after more than 150 leaders set eight ambitious targets for 2015 — ranging from cutting child mortality rates by two thirds, to halving the number of people living in absolute poverty and spreading access to the Internet — none are likely to be reached, experts say. Fallout from the financial crisis, a lack of will and … Continue reading →

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Can the Gates-ian approach to treating infectious disease work to alleviate energy poverty?

Posted on: August 26, 2010

Written by: Jean Kim Chaix

Categories: Companies, Funding, Health, Human development, Policy, Poverty

Tagged: ,


It occurs to us that Mr. Bill Gates’ description above of how the market treats (or not) infectious diseases could easily apply to energy poverty and the 3 billion people who depend on biomass as their primary fuel. For one, the socio-economics of the victims are similar. Second, there is no natural market for clean cookstoves.

So, could a Gates-ian approach to combating infectious disease work for poverty alleviation? Maybe, but there are major, maybe irreconcilable differences, between the two.

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Energy efficiency: what Coca Cola’s World Cup video can teach us

Posted on: July 18, 2010

Written by: Jean Kim Chaix

Categories: Climate Change, Environment, Health, Human development, Policy, Poverty

Tagged: ,


While we wait for Coca Cola to help us produce the perfect video that tells the story of energy-efficiency-technology-and-policies-solutions-to-energy-poverty, (they can help us find a better name, too!) we’ve compiled four slideshows recently published in the New York Times that we think help visualize the energy hunger/energy obesity world we live in.

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To achieve cookstove scale we need standards

Posted on: June 2, 2010

Written by: Jean Kim Chaix

Categories: Companies, Cookstoves, Health, Policy

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What’s more important: reducing fuel consumption or reducing emissions of black carbon and other toxic gases?

The answer is, of course, both, but designing a stove that meets the highest current ratings in emissions reduction and energy consumption at a reasonable cost has so far proven elusive.

Coming up with the right standards will be critical to getting cookstove projects to scale, especially since carbon-credit financing will be vital for some projects to make financial sense, says Dean Still of the Aprovecho Research Center.

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