|
The Initiative
The Biogas for Better Life is an African initiative that aims to provide cleaner and safer cooking facilities for at least two million households; improve family health; create jobs; and improve the position of women. The Initiative will be promoted using a market approach, working with audit and intensive marketing programmes. Construction and manufacturing companies, civil society, media, and the public and private sectors will be involved.
Background
Many households in Africa are increasingly facing problems with energy supply. The availability of traditional cooking fuels such as wood, agricultural waste, dried dung and charcoal is declining, while commercial fuels are too expensive and their availability unreliable. Women and children spend hours collecting wood, animal dung or crop residues. This takes precious time, and precious lives: the indoor pollution caused by cooking with traditional biomass leads to acute respiratory infection, the world’s greatest child killer. Often, the same households are facing also the consequences of lack of proper sanitation, resulting in water borne diseases affecting mainly women and children. There is – in short – a large demand in Africa for more sustainable energy sources and improved sanitation. Domestic biogas can meet that demand. It uses domestic resources like manure produced by cattle, pigs and poultry as well as human excreta. It is roughly estimated that around 100 million households are living in the rural areas of Africa. Half of those possess livestock that provide the input material for biogas digesters. Water is essential for a biogas installation to function. Only a part of the African population has access to sufficient water. The potential market could roughly account between 30 and 50 million installations.
Founding Initiative Partners
In the below table you find a list of the organisations that are founding partners of the Biogas Initiative
|
