"Cooking for a better life"

A flourishing business is developing in a small garage. By producing cooking stoves of an improved design Ken, a Malawian, is becoming a successful entrepreneur and has created 30 new jobs. These stoves not only generate income; by conserving natural resources they also foster sustainable development.

Biomass is...
...an important source of energy
Some 2.5 billion people around the world rely on biomass (fuelwood, charcoal, forestry and agricultural wastes, and dung) to meet their basic needs.

...a renewable – but not inexhaustible – resource
Cooking is traditionally done over an open fire, which wastes a great deal of energy and creates an enormous demand for fuel. This tilts the ecological balance and thus jeopardises the basis of human existence, in particular for the rural population.

...not entirely safe
Inefficient combustion produces a great deal of smoke, leading to serious health problems. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 1.5 million people a year die as a result of being exposed to “domestic smog”.

Our success story
GTZ has supported the dissemination of energy-efficient stoves for 25 years. With its help around 1 million such stoves have been successfully developed, produced and sold only in the last four years. These stoves save up to 80 percent of the biomass that would otherwise be required and produce virtually no smoke.