The Kiambu government in partnership with Energy Services Limited plans to distribute improved energy saving stoves to reduce deforestation.
The project is being piloted in Kiambu and Kajiado counties. Some 184 improved energy saving stoves will be given out in the pilot phase and 200,000 in the main phase.
Energy Services, also known as EnKing International, is an Indian firm which focuses on climate change, carbon offsets, and sustainability solutions.
EKI launched the zero-investment project targeting households that use traditional three-stone cooking fireplaces.
EKI regional manager Rajiv Sharma said the green cooking initiative started in 2018 with the aim of providing improved cooking stoves absolutely free of cost to economically weaker households, empowering their kitchens with a cleaner, healthier, safer and efficient cooking solution.
“The stoves help to reduce deforestation because they consume 50 per cent less firewood. Furthermore, the stoves will reduce household pollution, thereby improving household health,” Sharma said.
He added that the improved stoves help reduce the emission of greenhouse gases with the reduction in the use of carbon-intensive fuel – firewood.
“Every household using an improved cooker stove reduces their smoke emissions by up to 30 to 40 per cent, reducing the health risk of every member in the household especially that of the person cooking food,” he added.
Kiambu county chief officer for Water and Natural Resources Jennifer Musyoki, who attended the training of trainers on the pilot phase stove distribution, lauded the project saying it will enhance the economic well-being of beneficiaries as more time will be used on income generation and not on fetching firewood.
“With this jiko we will not need to walk endless kilometers every day just to bring back a pile of wood to make a family meal,” she said.
According to EKI, three billion people globally continue to use polluting biomass fuels for their every day cooking. There are over four million deaths reported every year from lung diseases due to smoke emissions, with 12 per cent of these being infants.
