[Stoves] Is this where we are headed ?

[CHRISTA ROTH]

Richard, to put this into context:  you might have missed out on the  
fact that this article is ONLY referring to 'humanitarian settings',  
meaning emergency situations and refugee camps, not the 'normal  
citizen world' or the '90% using basic stoves every day' .

Refugee camps are commonly under a UN- mandate, with tasks being  
distributed among  a number of different UN agencies, none of them  
having a specific mandate or interest (and often not much knowledge)  
on fuelwood issues.

Refugees are entirely on the receiving end, so somebody needs to make  
sure that their needs to cook the rations they receive can also be  
cooked appropriately and in a safe way.
The InterAgency Standing Committee Task force is taking this really  
important topic for women's safety in such emergency situations up by  
coordinating (and sensitizing)  the various UN agencies on the issue  
of SAFE access to fuelwood.

I do congratulate the people e.g. at Women's Refugee Commission and UN  
WFP for doing a good job on this topic and I sincerely hope that  
followers of this list don't get  a negative opinion of  their  
important work WITH and FOR women in refugee camps to ease their  
burden of getting their food cooked in an appopriate way.

I heard women in a refugee camp in Uganda saying 'Oh, last month  
wasn't so bad, I only got raped three times when I was collecting  
firewood....' That, unfortunately is an ugly reality in many  
humanitarian settings, unknown to many or not so publicly talked  
about, even in those UN agencies that are supposed to ensure refugees  
safety.

And by the way: I think the material developed by SAFE and the guiding  
tools on how to assess the fuel situation  is helpful, not only in  
emergency situations. You might still remember TV footage of charcoal- 
stoves being delivered to Aceh in the post-Tsunami scenario, when  
there was certainly a lot of wood from the destroyed houses to be  
burnt, but certainly no charcoal. There are people, who don't know the  
difference, for them a stove is a stove.
So the SAFE material has been developed to possibly avoid such kind of  
scenarios in the future.
regards, Christa

Am 21.03.2011 um 22:18 schrieb Richard Stanley:

> Tom,
>
> I was being entirely facetious in posting that image of the artical  
> abou 'fuelwood, getting it right'.
>
> Do we think that such a collection of agencies, however well  
> coordinated,  will make one whit of difference to the 90% of those  
> actually using basic cook stoves  every day ? It is of course  
> ostensibly a "good thing" to have "coordination" but when that  
> coordination becomes so removed from direct realities, that it  
> chokes initiative and local involvement of those it is supposed to  
> help,  then, one has to ask ...
> Quo vadis?
> Another king has no clothes question arises in a recent global   
> conference on clean air in a latin american nation
> Like the above initiative it is a wonderful idea to coordinate but  
> one has to ask really, what is the carbon footprint of flying the  
> 300 plus participants in form around the globe,  to talk about clean  
> cooking stoves ? There were no local users present, no food was even  
> cooked on the stoves. Who then is driving the design and ownership  
> process on which all these efforts are to flourish ?
>
> In the real world, would it not be better spent on very much more  
> localized meetings involving more local actors with more direct  
> local consequences?
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard Stanley
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 21, 2011, at 12:03 PM, Tom Miles wrote:
>
>> Link:
>>
>> http://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/press-room/journal-articles/1080-fuel
>> wood-getting-it-right
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
>> [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Richard
>> Stanley
>> Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 11:56 AM
>> To: Stoves and biofuels network
>> Subject: [Stoves] Is this where we are headed ?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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