Campaign on use of improved cooking stoves launched
A campaign aimed at encouraging Ghanaians to adopt the use of improved cooking stoves has been launched in Accra.
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The campaign is part of an initiative to promote energy-saving cooking practices and to positively influence the public, especially women, to use improved cook stoves.
The launch, which started with a road show through some principal streets of Accra, also featured some women sharing their stories on the benefits they had been enjoying after switching to the use of the new stoves.
Some local manufacturers and importers displayed their products.
Firewood and charcoal
Speaking at the launch of the campaign, the Vice-Chairperson of the Global Alliance for improved cook stoves, Mrs Sarah Naa Dedei Agbey, said studies had shown that 90 per cent of households in rural areas and 70 per cent households in urban areas depended on firewood and charcoal as their source of energy for cooking.
“This has implications on our forest. It is also the reason communities face growing scarcity of access to firewood and charcoal with demand ever increasing while supply remains unsustainable,” she added.
She said embracing cleaner cooking methods that protected the environment helped to reduce emissions that destroyed the ozone layer.
According to her, it would also go a long way in averting the premature deaths resulting from indoor pollution and said, “firewood and charcoal emit smoke which users inhale and that causes a number of respiratory and cancerous diseases.”
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Mrs Agbey said adopting the use of environmentally friendly stoves would help create businesses and jobs, as well as enable Ghana to achieve its sustainable development goals.
Targets
The Communications Manager of the Ghana Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Mr Christian K Osafo, explained that the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves was targeting 100 million households to switch to clean energy stoves by 2010.
In Ghana, she said the target was to reach an estimated six million households by the same period.
With support from DFID, the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Gender and Social Protection, Mr Osafo said the Ghana alliance for Clean Cookstoves “would roll up media campaigns aimed at creating awareness among the public to use improved cook stoves to save fuel and live healthy lives.”
Writer’s email: emelia.ennin@graphic.com.gh