Improved Cooking (Econofire Wood) Stoves: Source of Income, Contributing to Reduced Deforestation and Harmful Gas Emissions - Malawi

This activity is making and distributing improved cookstoves that are contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation and improving women’s incomes.

Fast facts:

So far, this activity has distributed 234 Econofire woodstoves to women in Malawi that are involved in village savings and loan (VSL) groups;
The activity plans to distribute 3,500 stoves in the next two years;
The stoves have an expected average lifespan of four years which corresponds to a 20,000 metric tonne reduction of wood being deforested and less than 32,000 metric tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

The problem

The traditional three-stones cooking procedure in Malawi uses a large amount of fuel wood. This way of cooking is inefficient, consumes huge amounts of wood and generates smoke and other harmful gasses. Women and children spend a lot of their time collecting wood, which is found further away from their village each year.

The solution

This activity has introduced and distributed 234 Econofire woodstoves to women in village savings and loan groups in rural Blantyre. These woodstoves cook food faster, decrease fuel usage and contribute to a healthier environment. The Econofire stoves use 60 to 75 % less wood or charcoal than traditional stoves, emit 50 to 80 % less harmful gasses and reduce cooking time by 50%.

Helping the planet

Women are playing an active role in addressing climate change challenges by indirectly contributing to a reduction in deforestation and cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. The "don't cut trees down or burn charcoal" approach is not effective in Malawi, so this activity is empowering women to take on leadership roles and take action. Women are being trained in groups on business management and have also benefitted from training in tree nursery establishment and afforestation.

Helping people

Due to this activity, a number of women entrepreneurs will be able to enlarge their businesses and employ people in their community. The women’s average household income has increased from less than USD 2 to USD 20 per month from stove sales. This increased income is used to meet basic household needs including food security as the rural areas continue to experience prolonged agricultural droughts resulting in crop failure.

Scaling Up

The project will continue to identify women village savings and loans groups as social entrepreneurs who can receive training in business management. This activity plans to expand to five districts through 100 VSL groups in each district. Approximately 10,000 women will be involved in selling stoves.