Das Projekt "Wirkungsevaluation der Niederländischen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit im Energiesektor" wird/wurde gefördert durch: Netherland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB). Es wird/wurde ausgeführt durch: Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung e.V. RWI, Kompetenzbereich Umwelt und Ressourcen.Since December 2009 RWI is leading a consortium with the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), which is in charge of the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of development activities in the energy sector financed by the Netherlands. The Netherlands are the most important bilateral donor in the energy sector and, following a debate in domestic policy about the effectiveness of Dutch aid, have committed themselves to a rigorous evaluation of the achieved impacts. The ongoing projects comprise electrification interventions, the provision of solar lamps, biogas, biofuels and efficient cocking stoves. Against this background, ISS and RWI will elaborate evaluation strategies for five countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal and Indonesia. The strategies will be implemented on the ground by 2013, when the results will be reported back to the Dutch Parliament. The purpose of the evaluations is to glean insights into the types and magnitude of impacts by rigorously quantifying the effects of Netherlands' supported development interventions. Lessons shall be drawn from the findings for improvement of policy and policy implementation. The impact evaluations should also help to better understand the extent to which activities reach the poor.
Das Projekt "Randomized Free Distribution of Improved Cooking Stoves in Rural Senegal" wird/wurde gefördert durch: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Es wird/wurde ausgeführt durch: Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung e.V. RWI, Kompetenzbereich Umwelt und Ressourcen.In most developing countries, the majority of households uses solid fuels like wood or charcoal for cooking purposes. Woodfuel usage for cooking purposes is associated with various negative effects on the health, gender, and the disposable income of households. Furthermore, in countries with rather low biomass production such as Senegal, this reliance on woodfuels may cause wood to be extracted in an unsustainable manner. Against this background, in many countries GIZ supports the dissemination of improved cooking stoves that are expected to significantly reduce the wood or charcoal consumption per meal. RWI evaluates GIZ's improved stove dissemination program in Senegal, whose focus so far has been the dissemination in urban areas. The intention of the program, however, is to extend activities in rural areas with different opportunities and challenges for the program. On the one hand, impact potentials are much higher than in cities where charcoal is used next to gas for cooking purposes. In rural areas, in contrast, people use firewood with implications on smoke emissions and women's work load. On the other hand, dissemination in rural areas is much more difficult, for example because people do not pay for the firewood and rather collect it, so that the investment in an improved stove does not amortize in monetary terms. In order to assess these impact potentials, but also possible dissemination strategies, RWI applies an experimental evaluation approach in rural Senegal. During a randomized controlled trial, 100 improved stoves were distributed randomly in November 2009 among 250 households that had been interviewed for a baseline survey before. In November 2010, the households were revisited in order to examine usage behavior, firewood consumption, firewood collection time, expenditures and respiratory disease symptoms. Thanks to the experimental set-up, self-selection problems typical for non-experimental studies can be avoided. Furthermore, it can be assessed to what extent people effectively use the improved stoves that they received for free.