Household social economic status and adoption of improved cook Stoves: the case of Kilimanjaro region Tanzania

Abstract

Low adoption rate of improved cooking stove (ICS) has been a challenge in most devel- oping countries where biomass is a major cooking energy. Low adoption rates have been attributed to several factors but little attention has been given to the role of household Social Economic Status (SES) in the adoption of ICS. This study was conducted in Hai and Rombo Districts in Kili- manjaro Region to investigate the role of household Social Economic Status (SES) in the adoption of ICS. The study employed the Asset Index as a proxy indicator for household SES. Descriptive statistics establish the share of ownership of various assets and housing conditions between adopters and non-adopters while binary logistic regression model was employed to test the influence of SES on the adoption of ICS. The descriptive statistical results have shown that some assets and housing conditions were common for both ICS adopters and non-adopters while differences was observed on ownership of assets such as cars, generators, TV and some quality housing conditions. The binary logistic regression results show that households with higher SES were leading in ownership of ICS. The study concludes that although ICS is a fuel saving technology with multiple benefits includ- ing social, environmental, health and economic benefits, such benefits were not sufficient for the poor households to adopt the stoves. There were other needs that households want to meet including the acquisition of several other valuable assets. Therefore, the study recommends continuing with awareness campaigns to emphasise on the economic, social and environmental values of ICS while at the same time designing a strategy to increase the adoption of ICS for the households of low SES.