Will African Consumers Buy Cleaner Fuels and Stoves?

Switching from traditional biomass to cleaner, safer and more efficient fuels for cooking can enhance the welfare of the 2.5 billion people worldwide who currently do not have accessto modern energy sources, while helping to reduce the negative health and environmental impacts associated with traditional biomass use. Despite the numerous benefits associated with cleaner alternatives, the transition to improved cooking stoves and fuels has largely stalled in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In order to design effective policies and programs to promote the use of cleaner cooking alternatives, the barriers to improved cooking technologies must be understood at the household level. To date, research regarding the determinants of stove choice at the household level has focused mainly on socio-economic attributes, such as income, age, gender and education, while the role of product-specific attributes, such as safety, indoor smoke, usage cost and stove price, has been disregarded or given less attention.