UNDP, Energy Commission and GA Collaborate with KNUST For Clean Cook Stove

Global Alliance for clean cook stoves Executives

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) together with the Energy Commission and Ghana Alliance for Clean Cook stove are collaborating with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The collaboration is aimed at supporting KNUST’s Technology Consultancy Centre (TCC) to establish a stove testing and expertise centre as well as to discover possible ways of improving and maintaining an effective and sustainable environment associated with the use of cook stoves. The centre is being funded by UNDP to the tune of ninety-thousand United States dollars (90,000 USD).

In view of this, Kwesi B. Sarpong, the Regional marking Manager of Global Alliance for clean cook stoves, and his team visited the Applied Industrial Ceramic and Rural Enterprise Development Unit of TCC. The purpose of the visit was to inspect the section that has been designated for the establishment of the stove testing and expertise centre and to examine the progress of work carried out by TCC.

Kwesi Sarpong explained that the former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2010 stated that more than half of the population in the world used wood as fuel to cook and as such four million (4,000,000) households were polluted. He added that in Ghana almost fourteen thousand (14,000) people who cooked in large quantities lost their lives from the health implications associated with smoke and particulate matter of which women and children were most vulnerable.

He went on to explain that it was for this reason that Ghana instituted an action plan in 2012 between the Ministry of Energy and Global Alliance to create an enabling environment which was intended to strengthen and enhance the production and demand of cook stoves and fuel in addition to supporting testing and expertise centres and KNUST’s TCC was selected as one.

In his final comments he said as part of improving and creating an enabling environment for our educational system, Ghana Alliance was currently sponsoring Kumasi Technical Secondary School (KSTS) with the construction of five (5) cook stoves which were being developed by TCC.

Dr. George. Y. Obeng, a Senior Research Fellow and Director of TCC, in a discussion disclosed that the fund for the centre was won through a competitive bid and further clarified that the centre would carry out science –based research and testing of emission of gases, efficiency, design and development as well as the standardization of cook stoves fabricated by Ghanaians and other small scale enterprises in West Africa upon its establishment.

Touching on the educational impact of the project he said it would provide opportunity for both undergraduates and post graduates students to design and develop modern cook stoves, and also help reduce problems related with the emission of lethal gases especially carbon monoxide associated with wood-burning stoves.