Radha’s Message for June 2014
Dear Friends,
I am delighted to announce that Guatemala is the latest Alliance focus country. Guatemala, joins Bangladesh, China, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda in this important category, and we applaud the Government of Guatemala and the Cluster of Improved Cookstoves and Clean Fuels, and other stakeholders for their active participation in developing the Guatemala Country Action Plan (CAP). The CAP marks an important first step by Guatemala towards removing the market barriers that prevent the adoption of clean cookstoves and fuels at scale. We were pleased to make this announcement at the first Latin American Regional Workshop on Clean Cooking that took place earlier this month in Lima, Peru. Nearly 200 of the Alliance’s partners and national staekholders came together for three days of intensive workshops, networking, and topical panels with the aim of ensuring greater adoption of cleaner and more efficient stoves and fuels in the region.
This month also marked the United Nation’s first global forum for Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) in New York, a gathering of more than 1000 representatives from leading NGOs, UN agencies, governments, and corporations committed to a shared clean energy future. The Alliance and our work to promote a market-based approach to the adoption of clean cooking solutions was featured prominently on several panels – women’s empowerment, clean cooking, and a high-level session – and provided an excellent opportunity to profile our recent accomplishments and the impressive work of our global partners. In addition, the Forum offered the chance for me to preview Phase II of the Alliance’s Strategic Roadmap for the global audience and outline our renewed focus on driving investment, consumer awareness, and deeper in-country engagement. In addition, the Alliance had a chance to introduce the household air pollution issue to many new potential stakeholders at the Forum and highlight the important role that clean cooking solutions can play in helping the UN meet its energy access goals. We remain closely engaged with the SE4All initiative and will continue to raise the importance of clean cookstoves and fuels as a component of a global energy access initiative.
This year marks the end of Phase 1 of the Alliance efforts along our ten year journey to our 100 by 20 goals. Thanks to our combined efforts, the sector has made good progress over the last few years and we are poised to go to scale. We have been developing our roadmap for Phase 2 and look forward to previewing that with many of you in the coming months to ensure that we add value to your work and that we are all aligned in our efforts.
Warm regards,
Radha