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...

Around 3 billion people in developing countries rely on woodfuels for their daily cooking needs with profound negative implications for their workload, health, and budget as well as the environment. Improved cookstove (ICS) technologies in many cases appear to be an obvious solution. Despite...

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...

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....

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

Using household-level survey data from Côte d’Ivoire, this paper investigates the determinants of fertility with a particular focus on the effect of electrification. Based on count data regression models, our analysis suggests a highly significant relationship between fertility and...

With the ‘Sustainable Energy for All’ initiative led by the UN and World Bank, the provision of access to modern energy has recently been brought to the top of the international development agenda. However, there is yet little guidance on how to measure modern energy access or its...

Providing access to electricity is widely considered as a precondition for socio-economic development in rural areas of developing countries. While electrification interventions are often expected to reduce poverty through productive uses for income generating purposes, the reality in rural...