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Incentivizing sustainable wood energy in sub-Saharan Africa a way forward for policy-makers

Year of publication 2017

Pages 12p.

Author Rob Bailis with contributions from Xia Zuzhang and Rao Matta

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

ISBN No ISBN

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Woodfuel contributes to more than half of energy consumption in 22 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and over two-thirds of the households in Africa use wood as their main fuel for cooking, heating and water boiling. While its use is expected to further increase due to population growth and urbanization, there is hardly any systematic approach to developing a sustainable wood energy sector in the region. Absence of effective policies governing wood fuel production, trade, conversion, and consumpt ion and the resultant indiscriminate and inefficient wood fuel collection and use contributes to continued deforestation and forest degradation. In addition, this is also causing indoor air pollution with obvious adverse health impacts besides imposing disproportionate fuelwood collection burden on women and children. While there have been instances where some of these challenges were addressed through suitable regulatory and incentive mechanisms, currently, however, information on such mechanis ms is scattered. The proposed work directly contributes to SO 4 - Enable Inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems and also SO 3 - Alleviating rural poverty.

Language English

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