[Stoves] Country by Country Project List?

[Xavier Brandao]

Dear Jan and Tom,

"Frank's suggestions are ambitious."
It's good to see far away, this is strategic planning. That doesn't mean
we'll do it right away. In time, all that info can be gathered, but one step
at a time.

"We need to figure out who we know, at the Alliance or at a University
Geography Department, Atmospheric Science Department/ Global Health
Department, ETHOS, etc who might be persuaded to take this on."
I suggest that if no one in the list is in relation with the Alliance, nor
knows anyone at the Alliance, we contact them. But we have first to shape a
project and make propositions, and know what we want from them.

"In the meantime, is it too big a project to start pooling the information
we currently have?"
I don't think it is but I also don't think the priority is to start
collecting. First, we need to make the "skeleton" of this list, the empty
cells that can be filled. And know how we will organise what we'll collect.
The info is already on the web, we will be able to collect it. Like Tom
said, it is on bioenergylists and HEDON, the GIZ, the Charcoal Project,
perhaps The Global Alliance have also info. But our job now is to find what
info is important, what is the order of importance, and a way to display it
so it's easy to use, and it even attracts newcomers.
We also need to define the next steps, so to do project planning.

" I've just observed over the years that waiting for someone else to do
something rarely seems to get it done."
Ahaha, clearly! That is my golden rule: always assume people won't do it, so
do it yourself if it has not been done already.

"Maybe make a country by country spread sheet that people could add to on
the stovelist? (I have no idea how that could be done technically.)"
This, I think, is a second project, see below. But we could put the
categories and organise the spreadsheet and use it for the first project
also mentionned below? We could use Google documents, it is a quite
practical mean to share a document everyone can contribute to and modify. I
don't know any other. The only thing is that you need to register an email
account.

"Great idea but who will do it and how do you fund it?"
Now everyone seems to agree that we should ask politely the Global Alliance
:) Basically what we will be doing is lobbying. We stove people want the
political (or not?) actors to consider our interests (which fortunately
rejoins the public interest), so we submit our ideas and propositions to
them. So that is why we need a lot of (influent) people working with stoves
saying: "stove projects need such a centralised database".

"Since nothing will happen very quickly with the Alliance don't expect
things to happen overnight."
This is why now is the right time to start.


This is how I see it, there are in fact two projects:
- the first project is to define what type of info on cookstoves should be
gathered, and how to "show it to the world". It is also to find the right
organisation, the right people, the right funding. This is up to stovers of
the stovelist. This project is about, to say it metaphorically, making a
structure of communication, making an empty table with the categories, with
empty cells.
- the second job is about filling this empty table. The "table" would be
handed out to people with IT workforce and funds, let say the Global
Alliance if they do accept the job and if it concords with their objectives.
They will gather all info on: bioenergylist, HEDON, The Charcoal Project,
the GIZ and other organisation databases, and do the code on their website
so our ideas can come to life. Since they will be hosting our "table", it
will become their table, it is to expect they'll make changes, but I think
we all work towards the same goal. Their table could and should be
participative, so experts from all around the world could add their info.
Info should be sourceable of course.

The steps for "our" first project:
- see who is interested in working on this project/has knowledge and
experience/knows the right people that could contact the Global Alliance
- find the way to work together. A spreadsheet on google docs is not bad,
any other idea?
- gather ideas and make a pre-project, not too detailed, contact the Global
Alliance or the appropriate organisation and submit it to them. Tell them
what we want from them.
- if they accept it, give the pre-project more details and hand it out to
them
- the second project starts, and is not, at least not entirely, in our
hands.

What is your opinion about that?

I started a spreadsheet on Google documents where I put my ideas mentionned
above. So we can share ideas in one place. You can access it here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AprmmRmIsdlndGNoTXVmZkV2YjcyRnhmNFN
zMlRvU1E&hl=en&authkey=CNW8hJcJ 
Don't hesitate to add/modify things everyone, perhaps you know a better way
to share info and work together, or perhaps you want to start another and
better spreadsheet than mine we would work on.

Cheers,

Xavier