Rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa have experienced limited progress towards the sustainable development goal of universal access to clean cooking. Energy-efficient biomass cookstoves (EEBCs) are considered a potential bridge technology, but EEBC models vary widely, and there is a lack of...

Many policy interventions in the environmental sector aim at changing environmental preferences, because these provide the basis for adopting environmental conservation behavior or technologies. To evaluate these changes, standard measurement tools in survey-based impact evaluations have their...

Increasing electricity access remains a challenge, particularly in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines the case of Tanzania, where rural connection rates remain low even among households residing “under the grid”, and this despite substantial government subsidies for...

This perspective article discusses whether energy access programs in rural Sub-Saharan Africa reach the poor in a way that most policy actors claim. We examine on- and off-grid electrification as well as improved cooking. The success of pro-poor development is predicated on the programs...

"Nachhaltige Energie für alle" – auf diesen Namen tauften die Vereinten Nationen und Weltbank jüngst eine Initiative, die den weltweiten Zugang zu modernen Energieformen fördern soll. Die allgemeine Überwindung des Mangels an verlässlicher und sauberer Energie, u.a. in Form von...

Today more than 2.7 billion people rely on biomass as their primary cooking fuel, with profound implications for the environment and people's well-being. Wood provision is often time-consuming and the emitted smoke has severe health effects - both burdens that afflict women in particular. The...

Rural electrification is believed to contribute to the achievement of the MDG. In this paper, we investigate electrification impacts on different indicators. We use household data that we collected in Rwanda in villages with and without electricity access. We account for self-selection and...

With 2.7 billion people relying on woodfuels for cooking in developing countries, the dissemination of improved cooking stoves (ICS) is frequently considered an effective instrument to combat deforestation particularly in arid countries. This paper evaluates the impacts of an ICS dissemination...

This paper examines the long-run relationship between energy consumption and real GDP, including energy prices, for 25 OECD countries from 1981 to 2007. The distinction between common factors and idiosyncratic components using principal component analysis allows to distinguish between...

Today 2.6 billion people in developing countries rely on biomass as primary cooking fuel, with profound negative implications for their well-being. Improved biomass cooking stoves are alleged to counteract these adverse effects. This paper evaluates take-up and impacts of low-cost improved...