WUNRN
MALI - WOMEN ENGINEERS PROMOTE
LOW-CARBON COOKING
By Soumaila T. Diarra - 10 Feb 2012
A 2010 report from
Dembele demonstrates the kit on
the paved floor of her compound. There’s a basic solar cooker, which consists
of a box lined with reflective foil, a metal pot and a heat-resistant plastic
bag. There is also an insulated “thermos” basket in which food is put to
continue simmering after being heated to boiling point, and a “rocket” stove,
which supplements the solar cooker and enables more efficient use of firewood.
“It’s not just because the
solar cooker and the basket can save our forests that I like them,” Dembele
enthuses, sitting under a neem tree in her compound. “You can’t imagine how
they have released me from the long domestic task of cooking.”
She explains how the basket
frees her up to do other jobs while food cooks, as she doesn’t need to sit and
watch her rice cooking for fear it will burn, as with a conventional stove.
Dembele trains other women to
make the alternative cooking kits, so her house on some days has become a
workshop for the Association of Women Engineers of Mali (AFIMA). Last
month, the group launched an extension of its project to promote greener
cooking throughout the country.
“It will have a significant
impact on carbon emissions from deforestation as it will save many trees. Those
who use the solar cooker and the thermos basket will no longer rely exclusively
on charcoal and firewood for their kitchen,” says Dembele, before imparting
instructions to a young colleague on how to use less firewood when preparing
the family lunch.
CARBON FINANCE EYED
Back then, 30 families paid a
small fee (the equivalent of $3) for two cookers, a cooking pot and a large
insulated basket for heat-retention cooking. “The participants were selected on
the basis of their enthusiasm for reducing the use of charcoal and firewood,
and their desire to learn a new method of cooking,” explains Aoua Niang, the
association’s interim president.
The women engineers collected data
on fuel use before and during the project, following up for a year to assess
charcoal and firewood consumption and savings.
Niang estimates that, on an
annual basis, the project cut charcoal use by 30 percent (360 kg per family),
saved each family about $80 dollars, and lowered greenhouse gas emissions by
3.2 tonnes per household.
The plan now is to expand it to
all the country’s eight regions. “Our dream is to covince all Malian families
to use the alternative cookers,” says Niang. “We’re sure it will work because
each time we tested them... people told us how they would like to own one.”
The two partner organisations
have been discussing how to register their scheme to earn carbon credits for
sale on international markets.
“Definitely, the carbon market
could finance the promotion of this integrated cooking method,” Niang notes.
It might also help fund
improved equipment.
The association is trying to
work out how to offer parabolic solar cookers, which are larger and can capture
more solar energy. They are produced by the government-backed Regional Centre
for Solar Energy (CRES), but are expensive at around $270 each. “What we need
to do is to find subsidised parabolic cookers for rural women,” Niang says.
CUSTOM V. THRIFT
In Dembele’s
compound-cum-workshop, two young women joke as they stack traditional baskets
near a pile of cotton fibre.
Kadi Samake, an unemployed
woman who is now a trainee with the association, explains the simple process of
making a cooking basket. “We buy baskets from farmers, and line them with
cotton fibre and black fabric to create the thermos effect,” she says.
Women appreciate the baskets
most of all because they reduce time spent cooking on stoves, Samake adds.
Rice, for example, only needs 15 minutes in the basket after the water
boils.
But using the new cooking
methods also represents a change from cultural tradition, a reason some people
are resisting, the engineers said.
Daouda Coulibaly, a
conservative merchant living in
“The three-stone oven on which
we cook is symbolic in the Bambara culture. It is the guarantee of the unity of
the family, so we don’t need to change that,” he says, referring to animist
rituals linked to traditional fires.
But Dembele doesn’t believe
this view is widespread in big cities where economic problems and high
inflation are increasing financial pressure on households. As the cost of fuel
rises, more and more people are open to alternative ways of cooking, she says.
“I used to spend about 500 CFA
francs (around $1) buying charcoal or firewood daily, but since I have been
cooking with the solar cooker and thermos basket, I spend about half of that,”
she explains.