Context:

In emerging markets, many people cook with charcoal or wood inside their homes, which has disproportionately negative health impacts on women and young children, and has negative climate implications. There are many technologies in clean cooking that can improve health and/ or climate outcomes — more efficient wood and charcoal stoves, kits to convert waste into fuel (biomass), LPG cylinders, electric pressure cookers and more! However, user adoption of these technologies is still low. A recent shift is the entrance of carbon finance and results based financing, which has offered a new pathway for funding for enterprises, and potentially end users. To capitalize on this momentum and drive increased adoption of clean cooking products, the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) is launching a User Insights Lab. Designing Impact is helping CCA identify the priorities for the User Insights Lab, run design sprints to create tools for the clean cooking sector, and increase uptake of clean cooking products globally. 

The Collaboration: 

The Designing Impact team facilitated workshops at the Clean Cooking Forum in Accra, Ghana, and in Nairobi, Kenya to surface the shared challenges across actors in the space - from enterprises who manufacture and distribute clean cooking products, to experts and investors. The team also conducted on-ground research to learn directly from users about what their experiences have been with clean cooking products. In the coming months, the Designing Impact team will lead a series of sprints to begin to build tools that can be leveraged by multiple stakeholders in the ecosystem.