Sustained uptake of clean cooking practices in poor communities: Role of social networks

Around 3 billion people across the world rely on the use of traditional fuels for their energy needs. Nearly all are poor and a majority use traditional inefficient cookstoves that partially combust these fuels and emit harmful carbonaceous pollutants. These traditional cookstoves are a significant contributor to household air pollution, and causes acute public and environmental health implications. To reduce these detrimental effects, clean cooking technologies (clean stoves and clean fuels) have been distributed widely around the world, targeting poor communities. However, sustained uptake of these clean cooking technologies has been tepid. There has been considerable focus on improving the technical design and development of these clean cooking technologies, with less attention paid to the social drivers that either lead or keep people from using the stoves. We argue for greater emphasis on understanding social networks, and their influence on sustained uptake of clean cooking practices amongst poor communities. By drawing from cases in health, microfinance, and clean cooking, we outline a perspective for emphasis on social network analysis in dissemination and implementation strategies of clean cooking practices for poor communities.