Editorial Note: While The Charcoal Project aims to promote alternative energy strategies, such as the use of energy efficient biomass burning stoves, improved kilns, and briquettes, we understand these may not always be the best solution for every developing country. In this story, a non-profit makes the case that, sometimes, a more “modern” fuel can play an important role in helping meet a country’s specific energy development goals. The Charcoal Project supports the sustainable use of modern fuels wherever possible.
By Nina Grigoriev
For almost half the world’s population, cooking outdoors on an open fire is not a choice but a necessity due the expense, unavailability or difficulty of securing natural gas or electricity.
This week, we bring you a story from Africa’s most populous nation: Nigeria.
Gifted with huge reserves of oil and gas, the country is today one of the fastest growing economies in the world. But despite its natural wealth, the country is struggling to provide basic energy for its own citizens, two-thirds of whom currently live on less than a dollar a day.
While Nigeria’s economic growth is based on sales of oil and gas, half of all the energy used within the country comes from firewood. The majority of the population depends on woodfuels for cooking and other domestic uses, but the rate of consumption far exceeds how quickly it can be replenished.
The largest sources of woodfuels at present comes from open forests, communal woodlots and private farmlands. Supply from natural forest regeneration is continuously being diminished due to the additional activities such as the clearing of forests for development projects, agricultural and industrial activities.
We spoke with Olu Maduka, the head of Friends of the Environment, the Nigerian chapter of the global non-profit Energia. We asked her about women’s role in shaping the country’s energy policies
Charcoal Project: You are a licensed engineer. What attracted you to energy use and women’s labor issues?
Olu Maduka: I found that there was a gap between household energy and its main users, women. In 1995 and 1996 I attended a meeting in Kenya where Energia [a Netherlands based NGO focused on gender and sustainable energy issues] was first formed, at which point I started an offshoot here in Nigeria, called Friends of the Environment. Our main goals have been women’s empowerment via renewable energy sources.
Can you explain the connection between gender and energy?
Nobody takes much notice of women and energy. They think energy is masculine. At the first workshop in Abuja (the capital) we tried to bring together members of the government’s Energy Council and Women’s Affairs. The initial response was negative. In fact, the Women’s Affairs ministry sent a man as their representative! We had to point out to them the relationship (between women and energy). While it’s true that in many regions men go to fetch the firewood, outside of the industrial sector, women are the primary consumers of energy for cooking and heating in the home. In talking about climate change, if you don’t consider women’s energy uses, you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle.
Besides household use, in what way do women use fuel to earn a living?
Many women are food vendors and use cooking as an income generating activity. They cook either inside the home, or in the homes of others, usually as caterers during special events or public holidays. They typically use firewood to cook. (This issue came up in our recent post on women’s role in biomass consumption in Nicaragua.)
Why have you chosen to promote Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG, also known as propane or butane gas) as an alternative energy source to woodfuels?
Health is part of the reason. But it’s also more convenient and cleaner. Also, in many regions men go out to fish, and women do the processing (i.e. drying). They use mostly firewood in the process and the smoke can be very intense. Those women are especially keen to switch to LPG.
We don’t promote charcoal because it’s inefficient to produce. In our work around Lagos [Nigeria’s largest city] — we have realized it’s not as rural as we thought. The women also expressed a desire to move away from using a simple wood stove. Those who are better off use kerosene stoves, but kerosene is very volatile and we don’t recommend it. Additionally, middle men take advantage of women’s low bargaining position, and have been known to charge many times more for kerosene than petrol, even though its essentially the same thing.
Nigeria produces a lot of gas, hence our choice of LPGs. The government is also currently promoting the spread of LPG to replace more inefficient energy sources, such as woodfuels. [Currently 50% of all gas is burned off as waste product during the oil extraction process.]
What are your goals with Friends of the Environment?
We want as many women as possible to use LPGs and we are trying to promote this switch via community education and policy change.
Women are very keen to switch to LPG and we are now trying to encourage the government to help women make their first purchase of an LPG tank. However, costs, availability, and fear of switching are a big concern.
We want to move this campaign to schools so that children can teach their parents. So far we have only reached one pilot school, a federal college here. This college uses firewood to cook three meals a day for their 2,000 students. It’s a huge environmental burden! A local gas supplier has volunteered to donate the gas to them, and we’ve convinced the principal to make the switch to natural gas, which we consider a big success. We’d like to continue working with schools in this way.
To what extent are men involved in the decision making process of fuel switching?
Nigeria is male-dominated society, so the opinion of men is very important to us. On a macro-level, we have to convince the men at the local and state levels to help us make the switch. Even the federal government has been unable to break through to them. On a micro-level, for a household to switch from woodfuels to LPG, both the husband and the community landlord must give their OK.
Everywhere we go with our workshops, we first have to go to the village head (always a male), and head of household (also a male’s role). Many of the women’s husbands won’t allow their wives to make the switch, expressing concern over safety issues. We are working to convince them that nothing is 100% safe, and that natural gas is an improvement over an open fire. We’ve done community workshops in many areas, which have been very positive. In the workshops we have run in rural communities, we demonstrate a gas burner vs. an open fire. The first thing the women mention is how the pots are much cleaner! With firewood, their pots quickly blacken. And, of course, it’s generally much faster to cook using LPG [than using a traditional wood fire]. The women now want us to come back, so they can bring their husbands and landlords. Another challenge is that many women prefer to cook outside the house, but with LPG now compels women have to cook inside the kitchen, so it’s still a challenge.
How does the Nigerian government prioritize energy policy issues and legislation?
It’s actually them (the federal government) that are promoting the use of LPG. However, the government must also help with money [i.e.: subsidies]. They need to assist women and families with their first purchase of gas supply. We need them to establish a bank where women can borrow a bit of money [i.e. microfinance]. Many of them are already part of cooperatives, so they can vouch for each other to make this purchase. It’s clear that the government will not be able to supply 40 million women with a free gas.
Do you believe there is a need for a biomass stove/kiln program to complement LPGs?
We’ve done two or three projects with biomass stoves on a mini-industrial scale. In Lagos the project did not go down very well. We had two plants within a co-operative and the whole community was involved, so they saved a lot of wood. We considered it a great success. However, when residential and commercial development eventually reached the plant, the government decided to demolish it, along with the stoves.
Our other project was a kiln inside the territory of a prison. Attending to the kiln demands a lot of work, and we had to give payment to the guards and prisoners to maintain it, which was unsustainable. We couldn’t make them see the value of it, and so this project failed.
We hope and welcome the opportunity to work with more such projects in the future, but at this point, we’ve had limited success with biomass stoves and kilns.
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According to the goals of Nigeria’s national energy policy, the country is trying to diversify its energy use, but progress has been slow. The Energy Commission of Nigeria, established in the last decade, is doing innovative research and implementing pilot programs for many renewal energy sources, such as wind, solar, and biomass. So far its impact has been minimal.
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