June 2018 Newsletter

GLPGP June 2018 Newsletter

In this edition we welcome Rwanda as a partner country of GLPGP.  With GLPGP support, Rwanda will plan and execute an LPG expansion strategy whose goal is to cut in half – from 80% to 40% – the use of biomass for cooking by its population.

Ghana’s cooperation with GLPGP has entered a new, exciting phase, as that country makes rapid and urgent strides to transform its LPG sector for increased safety and accelerated investment to rapidly achieve large-scale access and use of LPG by its people. 

Work in LPG microfinance and in development of the evidence base for the proper role of LPG as a leading clean cooking solution has made good progress as well.

We would like to thank all our past and present donors, in particular the EU with KfW, the OPEC Fund for International Development, Cavagna Group and Friedrich Scharr KG: Your generosity makes possible our continuing work to make LPG available, accessible and affordable to millions more families in Rwanda, Ghana, and many other countries.

GLPGP: Improving the Lives of Women and their Families in Cameroon and around the World

Watch our new video on how LPG as a clean cooking fuel is improving lives in Cameroon, where GLPGP works at both national & community level to achieve the goals of the country’s LPG Master Plan.

The government of Rwanda has requested GLPGP's assistance to support their new national strategy to reduce the amount of biomass in the country's cooking energy mix from over 80% to 40% by 2024. To do so, Rwanda plans to expand LPG usage to 40% of the population, including 100% in all urban areas.

An agreement was signed during the recent Sustainable Energy For All Forum in Lisbon, Portugal between GLPGP and the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure, represented by the Honorable Germaine Kamayirese, Minister of State for Energy, Water and Sanitation. 

GLPGP's expert technical assistance to Rwanda is expected to include the development of a national LPG Strategic Plan encompassing policy and regulatory aspects, market development support, supply sourcing support, investment structuring, and aggregation of needed private sector and concessional finance.

In Ghana, where GLPGP has been active since 2012, GLPGP was invited by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) in late 2017 to support them in planning and implementing the national transition of Ghana's LPG sector to the cylinder re-circulation model, to improve safety and expand access to LPG at a large scale. GLPGP has been providing ongoing policy advice and technical support to the NPA, and facilitated study trips to African and Latin American countries that have successfully built safe, large-scale national LPG markets.

A formal agreement between GLPGP and the NPA defining the next phase of cooperation was signed in Accra by NPA CEO Hassan Tampuli and GLPGP President Alex Evans on 10 May 2018.

The University of Liverpool conducted an independent study of GLPGP’s Bottled Gas For Better Life microfinance pilot launched in Cameroon in 2017. Results from survey respondents adopting LPG included: 

·      Primary fuel use after the loan period moved from firewood (75%) and other biomass (15%) to LPG (79%), although beneficiary households were not yet using LPG exclusively. 

·      Levels of fine particulate matter or PM2.5, responsible for most diseases related to household air pollution, were significantly lower. Exposure levels measured in primary cooks were below the World Health Organisation's indoor air pollution guidelines, confirming LPG’s health protective role. 

·      Significant reductions in headaches (from 46% to 9%), eye problems (66% to 8%) and burns received by cooks (25% to 3%). Burns in children were eliminated (9% to 0%).

Based on these positive results, and thanks to ongoing support from donors including the OPEC Fund for International Development, GLPGP is expanding the program to 800 households (around 4,000-5,000 people) across five regions of the country. Registration is ongoing and the first group of households received their LPG equipment and began loan repayments in May, 2018.

Cameroonian partners include LPG marketers Glocalgaz and Tradex, and microfinance institutions MUFFA and MC2, which have enhanced roles in this second phase, to build capacity and familiarity of local stakeholders with microfinancing for LPG.

GLPGP is launching a Kenyan Bottled Gas For Better Life pilot project, in partnership with the National Oil Corporation (NOCK) and Equity Bank, a leading Kenyan financial institution. To complement NOCK’s Mwananchi Gas project, which distributes smaller 6 kg cylinders with single burners to low-income families, GLPGP’s project will enable an initial 150 low-income households to acquire larger 12kg cylinders and double burner stoves to encourage exclusive use of LPG for cooking. Participants will make monthly loan re-payments and purchase LPG refills using Equity Bank’s mobile money platform.

A variant on the program is expected to be launched in Ghana later in the year.

GLPGP is now a partner in the University of Sydney’s Household Air Pollution and Peri-natal and Early Neonatal Mortality (“HAPPeN”) randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh. The trial aims to investigate the impact of household air pollution on peri-natal mortality by comparing the effects of use of an LPG stove to an advanced biomass cookstove. GLPGP is offering technical advice to the University on LPG supply, logistics, and safety.

Together with Clean Air Asia, a Manila-based NGO working to improve air quality in cities in Asia, GLPGP completed a retrospective evaluation of Indonesia’s “Zero-Kero” national kerosene-to-LPG conversion effort. This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health Implementation Science Network (NIH-ISN). Key findings included:

·      The program was successful in converting over 50 million households from kerosene to LPG for cooking in 5 years.

·      A key driver of the transition was Indonesia’s fuel subsidy policies, which affected the cost-effectiveness of LPG compared to other fuels.

·      LPG adoption was and continues to be influenced by household income, infrastructure readiness and retail access.

·      Biomass use as a secondary fuel is still high and there are missed opportunities to promote more exclusive LPG use.

The peer-reviewed paper has been accepted into the Energy For Sustainable Development special issue, and it is available online here. The team is also working on a policy memo distilling key lessons from Indonesia that can be applied to other countries seeking to increase LPG use.

LPG Myanmar 2018 Conference, Yangon, Myanmar, June 3-5

GLPGP Chairman Kimball Chen was a lead speaker at the LPG Myanmar 2018 conference in Yangon. His presentation focused on the role of international institutions in assisting Myanmar to plan and finance expansion of LPG availability and use.

OPEC Fund for International Development – Energy Access Platform Meeting, Vienna, Austria, May 30

Mr. Renzo Bee, Chair, Policy, Regulatory and Development Advisory, represented GLPGP at the recent meeting of the OPEC Fund for International Development’s Energy Access Platform (OFID EAP) at the end of May. At the meeting, members agreed to a renewed focus on the urgency of accelerating efforts on clean cooking, as is it not yet on track with Sustainable Development Goal 7 targets.

Argus West Africa LPG Conference, Accra, Ghana, May 9-10

GLPGP President Alex Evans was a speaker at the Argus West Africa LPG 2018 conference in Accra, Ghana on May 9-10, on how to build sustainable LPG markets in Ghana. He noted that a robust cylinder re-circulation model, which Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority is in the process of implementing nationally, has many advantages.  These include accelerating market growth and scaled and sustained safe adoption, helping the poor access LPG and limiting disruption within the value chain.

Mr. Evans was joined at the conference by Alphonse Frament, GLPGP Senior Advisor, who moderated a roundtable discussion on the growth of the LPG sector in Senegal.

 Sustainable Energy For All Forum – Lisbon, Portugal, May 2-3

The recent Sustainable Energy For All Forum (SEforALL) in Lisbon, Portugal in May featured several speakers from GLPGP. Notably, key attention was paid to clean cooking fuels, specifically LPG, by both the forum leadership (SEforALL CEO Rachel Kyte) and leading public health sector organizations, including WHO and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Senior researchers from NIH spoke about the tangible health benefits from the use of LPG for clean cooking, and that in their recent research are shown to be lacking from lower tier biomass cooking interventions.

Bessem Enonchong, GLPGP's Cameroon Country Director, presented during a Plenary on GLPGP’s work together with the Cameroon government to develop and implement the country’s LPG Master Plan to increase LPG penetration to 58% of the population by 2030. She also spoke about the progress made on, and impact of, GLPGP’s Bottled Gas For Better Life microfinance program. Key messages also included the importance of education to increase awareness of LPG benefits, and the need for greater investment in LPG cylinders and consumer financing, both of which are areas of focus in GLPGP’s current work with the government of Cameroon.

In addition, GLPGP co-hosted a Partner Working Session on Clean Cooking Fuels for SDG 7 – Beyond the Biomass Stove, moderated by Richenda Van Leeuwen, GLPGP's Chair, International Institutions. The session included breakout discussions exploring five facets of cooking fuels respectively: policy; market assessment/pathways; investment; innovations; and consumer, community and national case studies.

Several policy and programmatic focus areas were identified in the discussion to help guide future clean cooking actions, including: building capacity for policy implementation through a collaborative approach across government within a country; the need for a market-based approach (with appropriate de-risking) and avoiding market-distorting giveaways; accelerating research and development (R&D) and adopting innovative approaches from other energy sub-sectors, such as off-grid solar, to improve affordability and accessibility of clean fuels; and improving program sustainability through a focus on reducing stove stacking and prioritizing the needs of women (as primary household energy users). Read our session summary here.