Impact of Policy Options on Accelerating Clean Cooking Transition in the South-East Asian Region

Abstract

Around 2.6 billion people globally still cook using solid fuels and kerosene in open fires and inefficient stoves. These inefficient cooking practices produce high levels of household air pollution, causing health damages. Since women and girls often take primary responsibility for cooking and collecting fuels, they are disproportionately affected by traditional cooking, worsening gender inequality. In addition, cooking without clean stoves and fuels also causes severe environmental harms, in the form of harmful, climate-warming emissions and unsustainable harvesting of wood fuels. This study focuses on South-East Asia Region, where 1.54 billion people lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. The analysis utilizes the Benefits of Action to Reduce Household Air Pollution (BAR-HAP) Tool developed by Dr. Marc Jeuland and Dr. Ipsita Das at Duke University for the World Health Organization, to assess the impact of different policy interventions on cooking-related household air pollution and related health issues. This tool quantifies and monetizes the costs of interventions to the health system and households, and the benefits to health, time saved, and reduced climate impact. This Master’s Project focuses on three fiscal policies: stove subsidy, fuel subsidy, and stove financing. Although the calculated amount of benefits differs in each country’s case, and the actual implementation might lead to progress that differs from the model’s projection, a faster transition is more cost-beneficial from overall health, gender equality, and environmental perspectives. Based on the results, stove financing is the most cost-beneficial in Bangladesh, rural Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, while stove subsidy is the most cost-beneficial in Thailand. Governments in SEAR should also prioritize the rural populations to maximize the return from policy intervention.