Support the promotion of clean cookstoves through an online resource for a global audience.

Why we care:  For many women in developing countries, cooking is deadly, illness- or injury-inducing, or wastes precious time that could be used more productively.  Household air pollution from cookstove smoke is the 4^th greatest health risk in the world according to the Global Burden of Disease Study.

How we’re solving this:  Creating an Online Knowledge Hub to enable our partners to empower women to use clean cookstoves.

The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Alliance) has been at the forefront of recent efforts to transform the cookstove and fuel sector by creating a global market for clean, safe, efficient and affordable cooking products, and has set an ambitious goal of 100 million households adopting clean cooking solutions by the year 2020.  The need is great: 3 billion people rely on solid fuels – including wood, charcoal, coal, and animal waste – to cook their food every day that, when burned, cause a range of health and environmental impacts that claim 4 million lives annually – primarily among women and children.

Women play a crucial role in the global adoption and use of clean cooking solutions because in most developing countries, they have the primary responsibilities of cooking and ensuring their families have enough fuel to cook, light and heat their homes.  The Alliance recognizes that without a robust understanding surrounding gender issues and opportunities, the adoption and sustained use of clean cookstoves and fuels will fall flat. Currently, efforts to invest in women and integrate gender issues in the clean cookstove and fuel sector remain fragmented and in pilot phases, hindering our goal. In order to increase the success of cookstove and fuel initiatives, the Alliance is developing an Online Knowledge Hub, which will increase global integration of gender and women’s empowerment and fill a critical gap on the way to achieving our goal.

The Online Knowledge Hub will:

• build the capacity of our partners to more effectively empower women and mainstream gender in cookstove and fuel enterprises and initiatives;
• provide access to the latest research and evidence;
• create linkages and opportunities for partnerships;
• and offer interactive tools and resources.

The resources on the platform will include practical guidance for practitioners on how to increase the number of women engaged in their program.  It will also contain surveys, checklists and guidelines that they can directly use in the field.  There will be interactive maps that demonstrate where successful projects are taking place and which technologies they are using, discussion forums and tools to link to practitioners and experts all over the world, and e-courses and webinars so people can increase their knowledge directly from their computers.  The Online Knowledge Hub resources will allow cookstove and fuel programs to reach and engage women to achieve sustained adoption and use of healthier cookstove technology.

The Alliance will use the funding to conduct research to develop cutting-edge content and to deliver the latest and most innovative techniques in assuring women are empowered through clean cooking solutions. Alliance staff will create and maintain the content, as well as develop the tools. This project will support a web developer to create a state-of-the-art website that is easy-to-use and accessible to people all over the world.  Help ensure that the Alliance’s motto, cooking shouldn’t kill, becomes a reality in our lifetime.