Ghana Cookstoves

Ghana Cookstoves Feasibility Study

The Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) provides lunches to approximately 1000 primary schools in Ghana to over 400,000 students. By 2010, it is projected that the program will serve 2,900 schools and approximately 1.04 million primary school children.

In 2008 UC Berkeley researchers working with GSFP identified a major bottleneck in the provision of school lunches turned out to be the method of preparation.  Although participating schools were provided with gas burners and fuel cylinders, once the cylinders were empty, they were no longer used. Round trip transportation of these cylinders, let alone the cost of refilling them, was so inefficient and so expensive that the school kitchens routinely reverted to simple 3 stone wood fires for food preparation. Thus, rather than relying on a remote fuel source an alternative needed to be found.

Consequently, the Ghana Cookstove Feasibility Study has been launched in partnership with GSFP.  This project will evaluate the feasibility of introducing a low cost, efficient cook stove similar to the Berkeley-Darfur Stove into schools and rural villages throughout Ghana. Team members are focused on implementing a marketing survey that measures current cooking habits, fuel usage, and willingness to pay.  In addition they are developing a business plan that outlines a replicable stove manufacturing and distribution process. The resulting benefits include environmental conservation, improved air quality within the schools and homes, enhanced nutrition, and reduced time and effort searching for fuel.

Principal Investigator: Professor Sebastian Teunissen, Haas School of Business
Field Location: Ghana
Partners: Ghana School Feeding Program; Ashesi University College; The Rosenfeld Fund For Global Sustainable Development;The Longevity Project