[Stoves] Victory for GACC; now what?

[Nikhil Desai]

Ajay Mathur of Teri is quoted in CCF 2017
<http://www.cleancooking2017.org/the-forum-daily/day-3-recap/>

*"I am delighted that words like ‘ecosystems for developing’ and
‘maintaining’ clean cookstoves and ‘issues on value chains’ are now taken
as the norm. I remember when it was rather difficult to get people to give
you the time of day when you talked of these things."*


It is to GACC CEO's - and Hillary Clinton's - credit that this
transformation has happened. While Hillary hasn't been heard from on
cookstoves in a long time - she uploaded a video
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JM-eOiwFOA> of wonking out with a New
Jersey nurse on cookstoves, GACC CEO has shown resilience and tenacity
after the loss of political clout with the sad Clinton defeat last year.
(In my books, it's the anti-coal plank that cost her traditional Democratic
votes, but that's history. Maybe uranium did.)

The other story is that EPA may finally get its budget for FY2018 which
started on 1 October. According to a March 2017 analysis of the proposed
EPA budget Blueprint by Environmental Protection Network
<http://fedweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EPA-Budget-Analysis.pdf>,
"the Budget Blueprint eliminates funding for EPA’s international climate
programs" including "provide technical assistance for reducing their GHG
pollution, including from landfills and cook stoves, which pose other
serious health threats to families in many developing countries." The
current website of EPA Office of International and Tribal Affairs
<https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-office-international-and-tribal-affairs-oita#gap>
doesn't
mention cookstoves, though GACC is listed under "international priorities
<https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/international-priorities#climate>",
EPA funding of which may be cut. No telling how much money will be
appropriated for EPA-WHO cooperation
<https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-10/documents/epa-who_mou_final_508.pdf>,
the MOU for which was signed just last year and covers "Indoor and Outdoor
Air Quality and Health" and "Climate Change and Health".

Simon Bishop
<https://www.devex.com/news/former-dfid-political-adviser-on-uk-aid-direction-and-his-new-role-at-plan-90224>,
an old "stoves" hand at DfID for some five years - after starting at the
Shell Foundation stoves work, help establish GACC and serving with UNF -
has exited for a private charity.

Politics trump.

Not that EPA, DfID had anything to show for blowing money on stoves; they
wasted money on building "evidence" and "performance testing" and avoided
technical research to support new stove designs. There is only so long you
can fool some people by the poverty pornography of household stove smoke
<http://mashable.com/2016/11/05/clean-cookstoves-wireless-data-study/#t3Bmr_tXfSqn>
and
promise the moon - Hillary's $100 billion a year for the Green Climate Fund
(GCF).

Time to declare victory and move on. USEPA and climate were wrong excuses
for cookstoves work anyway; USAID has been surprisingly silent or cast
aside. World Bank via C-Dev and CSI seems to be the only organization with
any record of new technical and financing initiatives.

GACC should be pulled out of UNF and placed in Teri, with GOI making up for
the lost revenue from US government and UKAid, EU committing a $100 m a
year in technology development. I am guessing that at least 20 flowers have
bloomed in the last ten years, and Teri may have the wherewithal,
footprint, and intellectual authority that UNF never had. EPA was just a
drunk elephant stomping the ground.

Monies have been made. Papers have been published. Mistakes have been made,
if not acknowledged. Now it's time for real work.

UN Foundation - the fee-for-service owner of GACC - boasts on Twitter
<https://twitter.com/unfoundation> of "Connecting You with the UN" (giving
the false impression that it is a part of the UN) and tweets "Clean cooking
empowers woman, protects forests, improves health." THIS is the same old,
same old and shouldn't be given the time of day.

GACC Secretariat is thin and can be absorbed at Teri or SE4All. Project
financing - i.e., for investments and subsidies - should go to MDBs and EU
governments. WHO has no business talking about stove standards,
distribution chains, and should be put on aDALY revenue model instead of
government contributions. A laudable initiative of Hillary Clinton was
destroyed by the pay-to-play model of UNF.

Nikhil


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