The effort was aimed at reducing excessive exploitation of trees and forests for fuel wood by communities and to drum home the inclusion of the Improved Stove policy interventions to combat environmental degradation. The Improved Cook Stoves (ICS) are efficient in terms of cooking time as against the traditional stoves; it saves fuel and the time that would have been used to gather fuel wood.

Mr Julius Awaregya, the Coordinator of the Organization for Indigenous Initiatives and Sustainability (ORGIIS), in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the effort was part of an advocacy initiative of his outfit and championed under the SNV-Voice For Change partnership, to draw the attention of policy makers to increase communities’ access to affordable, efficient and sustainable energy solution with emphasis on clean cooking and access to off grid electrification.

Mr Awaregya said the level of degradation caused by excessive use of fuel wood and its effects on the health of people calls for holistic measures to protect the environment. Though recommendations made by beneficiaries during the sensitization exercise included the need for subsidies by the district assemblies, the Kassena Nankana Municipal and the Kassena Nankana District Assemblies were slow to incorporating clean cooking into their Medium Term Development Plans (MTDPs), he said.

He called on the assemblies to allocate some financial resources to engage and support communities to acquire the needed hardware for cooking. He said in 2017, ORGIIS through partnership with the Navrongo Research Centre, distributed 600 ICS and 300 LPGs to households in the two districts.

The Coordinator said in January alone 50 LPG cylinders and stoves were supplied to 50 households from beneficiaries’ own funding initiatives. “Women in the rural areas walk over 15 kilometres daily in search for fuel wood. The implication on their health and wellbeing is enormous and we need national interventions to address the concern”, Mr Awaregya said.