Business Planning to Achieve Sustainability of Regional Testing and Knowledge Centers
The Alliance is currently looking for Regional Testing and Knowledge Centers (RTKCs) that are interested in working to develop their business plans and helping to create a toolkit that can be disseminated to other centers.
Around the world, RTKCs are providing high quality testing services for cookstove and fuel enterprises to help evaluate and improve cooking technologies. Enterprises also rely on RTKCs for third-party testing of their products and to meet the requirements being established by donors, investors, and governments. In 2013, the most recent year for which the Alliance has data, hundreds of stoves and fuels were tested by RTKCs. This number continues to grow as more and more clean cooking enterprises reach out to these centers for testing services.
A mature market for cookstoves and fuels will need RTKCs that are firmly established organizations with a long-term presence in the sector. In order to achieve organizational sustainability, RTKCs must tailor their services to the needs of potential clients, identify more revenue streams, and look for ways to become less reliant on grant support. The Alliance will be working with RTKCs to develop in-depth business plans, understand the landscape of testing needs and potential clients, and to establish these testing and knowledge centers as a long-term resource for Alliance partners.
RTKCs interested in participating can find more information and fill out the application form here: https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2200694/Application-for-RTKCs-to-Pilot-Business-Planning-Materials
For more Standards, Testing, Technology, and Fuels updates, see https://cleancookstoves.org/technology-and-fuels/. Be sure to click on “See more updates” for the full list.