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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Dear Crispin and Jan,<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Here are three partial unpublished reports and one aggregate table that I put together for GTZ as a valiant effort by an anthropologist to to turn a small sample of face to face interviews into a meaningfully differentiated model of the charcoal stove economy of Lusaka. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Maybe it will illuminate some of the proverbial and continuing difficulties encountered by 'expensive' improved stoves to gain and hold on to a significant share of a local stove market that is dominated by crappy but very low cost stoves made by artisans. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>The TV and cell phone examples given by Crispin do not 'ring' completely true for the bottom 2/3rds of the Lusaka charcoal stove market because there poor people buy the best lowest cost phones and TV's that are on the market. So the principle is the same: poor people purchase the lowest cost stove technology on the market. Yes, it is possible for them by heroic feats of self denial to save enough money to purchase a $25 to $50 cell phone or even a more expensive TV, but if there was a cell phone or a TV on the market that cost less and still functioned adequately they would surely buy the lowest cost technology that gets the job done. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>What I discovered and tried to establish in this study was that low income people who live and die according to how well they manage their daily cash flows can as a rule only manage to save about 20% of their daily cash flow over a 7 day period so the amount of money a household can save in a week pretty determines the upper limit of how much they are willing/able to spend to buy the least expensive functional charcoal stove on the market. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>In search,<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Cecil Cook<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>TechnoShare (SA) <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@gmail.com">crispinpigott@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Dear Jan<br><br><br><br>I am picking up on the past comment you made: "For people living on $2 a day<br>or less, what for example would be considered a low cost stove? Middling?<br>High?"<br><br><br><br>I am copying this to Cecil Cook who is a social anthropologist specializing<br>in stoves and their use. You can contact him directly if he does not respond<br>to this group (to which he is not subscribed).<br><br><br><br>The $2 per day person is usually not someone living on a total income of $2<br>per day as a salary from which they must pay for everything. Yes there are<br>such people, however that is not really representative of total income or<br>one could say, value of all income including in-kind receipts. For example<br>fuel collected free from the environment without expense has a value and<br>from a marketing point of view, an opportunity cost.<br><br><br><br>With that in mind, one can more easily understand how people with "$2 per<br>day" income have cell phones and TV's. There are a number of ways you could<br>slice it: disposable income, extended family total income including<br>environmental contributions and so on.<br><br><br><br>Cecil has found that the maximum amount a stove can cost, i.e. to be bought<br>at all by anyone in the target group, is dependent on cultural<br>considerations. A way to think about it is like this: how much money will<br>accumulate in the pocket of a person 'saving for a stove' (or other major<br>purchase) before it 'grows holes' and leaks out? I will give his example of<br>Lusaka where the amount is 10 day's income. No one in the main target<br>population saves more than 10 day's income before something else starts<br>eating it. It may be a relative's school fees, needed clothing and so on.<br>Anything. That is the upper limit of a practical stove's cost.<br><br><br><br>The upper limit for a voluntary purchase near the 'usual cost' is also<br>important. Asking people not how much they are willing to pay for 'anything'<br>max, but how much they are willing to pay for a stove will generate a<br>different answer. If it saves fuel and cooks as well and has less smoke and<br>(especially) lights quickly and cleanly, people will usually say they will<br>pay more than the standard product. In the case of Lusaka, the standard<br>stove goes for about $1.50. An improved stove that will save fuel can sell<br>for $2.50 to $3.00. Stoves that cost more than that will sell poorly because<br>it is above the tolerance range for 'stoves' even though it is well under<br>the maximum they could save.<br><br><br><br>If a stove has wonderful features so attractive that people will pay<br>'anything to get one', it will bump into the upper limit of what most people<br>can save before it starts leaking out of the pocket.<br><br><br><br>For many years stoves costing $10 to $15 have failed to thrive in Lusaka.<br>That is below the 10 limit but far above the $2.50 limit. In a different<br>culture, with a different fuel price (fuel in Lusaka is pretty cheap) with a<br>different pay method/cycle there will be different numbers involved but the<br>same principles.<br><br><br><br>You may find his discoveries helpful when analyzing your cost-benefit<br>scenarios.<br><br><br><br>Regards<br><span style='color:#888888'><br>Crispin<br><br><br></span><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>