Inclusive Private Sector Engagement—A Key to Growth in Malawi’s Urban Cooking Transition

A shift toward cleaner cooking by urban households—use of improved charcoal stoves, 可持续的木炭, 替代生物质能源, and liquefied petroleum gas—is the best way to slow forest cover loss in Malawi. 私营机构参与, with an explicit focus on greater inclusion of local actors along cleaner cooking value chains, 大规模采用和长期可持续性都有必要吗. 当地企业, 与国际公司相比, 是否适合领导这一转变, replacing the status quo of inefficient charcoal stoves fueled by unsustainably harvested and illegally produced charcoal. 具体地说, local entrepreneurs and other value chain actors are often uniquely positioned to deliver advantages across three essential components of this transition.

可接受性

Locally-led companies have a detailed understanding of existing cooking technologies and the social and cultural preferences that inform local cooking practices. That understanding is essential to effectively create awareness of alternative cooking technologies that can be adopted at a scale capable of significantly reducing deforestation. For any alternative cooking approach to become the new status quo and be maintained long-term, it must be well aligned to local cooking practices and have actual advantages, 而不是其他选择, 这可以被做饭的全球最大体育平台感知到. A deep understanding of cooking practices is necessary to introduce technologies that can achieve scale and sustainability, and local enterprises often have a higher level of familiarity and trust with the customers than foreign companies.

可购性

Many cleaner cooking business models depend on scale because purchases of stoves and of fuel have low potential profit margin per customer because the disposable income of the target urban customers is often extremely low. Limiting operating costs of any business in the sector is essential for long-term sustainability, because high overheads reduce the likelihood that the business can reach scale within a timeframe that enables it to become financially viable and survive. The overheads of foreign based companies are typically much higher when compared to local companies, 为当地成本结构提供长期优势.

可访问性

Last mile distribution in the urban cleaner cooking sector requires both infrastructure and networks to make stoves and fuel—particularly fuel—easily accessible to each urban household. Replicating the existing distribution channels for illegal charcoal presents a significant challenge to large-scale adoption. Presently, illegal charcoal is often available within a short walk from the end customer’s home. 任何替代方案都无法与这种现状竞争, 向城市家庭提供燃料的过程必须复制. This requires co-opting existing distribution channels or creating new channels. Local companies will often have an advantage over foreign companies because of their ability to replicate those channels that can make the fuel accessible to customers at an affordable cost basis.

而本土公司拥有很多这样的优势, they often lack market information and the access to finance—commercial or donor—needed to achieve scale. 帮助解决这些差距, the USAID and Department for 国际发展 co-funded MCHF project is conducting consumer market research and compiling market information to encourage entrepreneurs to access the project’s results-based finance. This will be coupled with technical assistance and business linkage support to local companies to increase the probability of long-term sustainability and scale within the cleaner cooking sector.