Fuel-efficient cookstovesmay relieve Darfur’s suffering.A “simple” ideais making a difference to vulnerable people in a region threatened by political violence and climate crisis.Darfur offers a laboratory to test the success of the humanitarian response.

Despite the generosity of donor organizations and donor nations, people wonder where the money goes.Reports on Global Humanitarian Aid parse the funds, sources, targets, and met and unmet goals.

In 2013 alone, the most significant government contributors — the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Sweden, and Japan— provided US$19.7bn on top of US$5.8bn from private donors(Swithern, 2015).The tenmost significant recipients of international humanitarian aid were Syria, South Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Philippines, Palestine Authority, Jordan, Somalia, and Sudan (Swithern, 2015, p. 73).In 2013, only Syria received more long-term humanitarian assistance than Sudan (Swithern, 2015, p. 100).

Sudanwas the third-largest recipient of global humanitarian aid in 2010. Most of those funds went to the humanitarian crises created by the chronic conflict in Darfur. Shifts in the recipients reflect natural disasters in The Philippines, the Ebola crisis in Liberia, and new and/or continuing conflicts in South Sudan, Somalia, and Sudan.

The total international aid includes climate-specific adaptation funds, peacekeeping efforts, crisis intervention, food distribution, water access, and refugee shelter. The total package contains direct foreign investment, long- and short-term debt as well as debt forgiveness and other portfolio elements.

In short, the world contributes generously within its means. Some contributions are beyond reproach. But others leverage funding for political gain and influence. Corrupt governance consumes many resources as does corruption along the entire distribution chain — actions that diminish the goodwill of individual grantors and undercut the ethics of contributing government agencies. Darfur is a case in point.

Darfur’s context

Almost 8 million people inhabit Darfur, the vast western region of Sudan. It is the tribal and circumstantial home to over 20 percent of Sudan’s total population. A thousand miles remote from Sudan’s capital at Khartoum, it is a desperately parched land vulnerable to climate change, extremist infiltration, internal tribal conflict, historic genocide, and gender-based sexual violence as a weapon.

Sudan has been categorized as a chronic humanitarian emergency for over 20 years. Conflict and natural disasters have led to massive scale displacement. Markets have collapsed, political and ethnic tensions have led to a breakdown in social support mechanisms. People have lost their assets, and the food security situation is critical.  Darfur ranks highest in humanitarian caseloads and with most of its people dependent on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs (UNOCHA, 2013).

The peace process in Darfur has not been fully inclusive, and all agreements have yet to be implemented. The situation remains extremely dynamic, with pockets of improved stability as well as new conflicts emerging throughout the region. The year 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of the Darfur crisis tenth with a harvest of almost 3.4 million internally displaced people, including 1.4 million people receiving food aid in camps (UNOCHA, 2013, p. 9). And, as Darfur’s protracted crises near their 20th anniversary, the worldwide attention human rights activists, humanitarian organizations, practitioners, researchers, and the global community continue despite other existential threats.

The Darfur catastrophe, dating to the late 1970s, is considered a unique case study because many contributing stressors and shocks have played a role in exacerbating the crisis. For many, it appeared to be a conventional African political and interest conflict between contradicting agendas (a government-rebel, Arab-African, Arab-Arab struggle for power and ethnic conflict). However, this is only the tip of an Iceberg based on the impact of gradual climate change for over 50 years as well as urbanization, marginalization, and competition on dismissing recourses between pastoral- and agriculture-based communities (Suliman, 2006).

However, the international media have represented the Darfur conflict through a naive lens as an ethnic war between African descendant groups and Arabic tribes/nomads known as the “janjawid” (or “Janjaweed” mounted gunman) (O’Fahey, 2004), the group regaining power through violence in Khartoum in June of 2019.

This inaccurately simplifies a complex reality. For example, wealthy farmers (mostly African descended tribes) can cross the ethnic bridges by changing their livelihoods from farming to pastoralists and to “Baqqara/Baggara” (in Arabic: cattle herdsmen/cowboys) (Suliman, 2006; O’Fahey, 2004). Within a few generations, the descendants would have an “authentically” Arab genealogy (O’Fahey, 2004). Thus, the ethnic classification of fighting groups in the Afro-Arabic conflict is very fluid. Many disagree on the causes of the Darfur conflict; however, no one can deny the resulting ugly consequences and the humanitarian misery. Darfuris typically describe their continuous misery with the despairingexpression “Umm kowaak/Umm Kwakiyya,” meaning “the mother of damnation” (Gasim, 2013; O’Fahey, 2004).[1]

Although Sudan was the third-largest recipient of global humanitarian aid in 2010, most of those funds went to the humanitarian crises created by the chronic conflict in Darfur — displaced people, a shattered economy, gender-based violence, and more. That conflict and the consequent dependence on international aid created an immediate need for long-term and sustainable solutions.

The case for resilience

Recently, most of the international aid donors have emphasized the need for establishing a new program paradigm. Any new model must capture the previous lessons learned. This study examines whether fuel-efficient cooking stoves (FES) programs in Darfur possess the necessary and intended resilient features. A third of humanity worldwide uses open or pit fires for warming and cooking; the fires consume resources, exhaust time, and pollute the environment. The availability of fuel-efficient cookstoves can make a meaningful and resilient impact on the users and their surroundings.

“Fuel-Efficient Stoves (FES) are specifically designed to reduce fuel consumption andprovide a substitute for the traditional three-stone fire. They can be made of mud,clay, or metal, and they can use different types of fuels, such as fuelwood, charcoal,briquettes, biofuels, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or kerosene” (FOA).

“Resilient” programscommonly sequence through the following design dimensions:

• Building vital livelihood assets including non-monetary capital such as skills, leadership, and knowledge;
• Facilitating and scalingaccess to basic services;
• Enabling all sectors especially vulnerable groups;
• Building peace and co-existence among community members;
• Promoting livelihood diversification and indigenous best practices;
• Doing no harm;and,
• Building the ecosystem.

The DarfurFES programs have passed through three stages between 1997 and 2008(Abdelnour & Branzei, Fuel-Efficient Stoves for Darfur: The Social Construction of Subsistence Marketplaces in Post-Conflict Settings, 2010):

1. The Killer in the Kitchenstage focused on the direct health benefits of the technology. The smoke from burning stoves “turns kitchens in the world’s poorestcountries into death traps. Indoor airpollution from the burning of solid fuels

kills over 1.6 million people, predominatelywomen, and children, each year. This is

more than three people per minute” (Warwick & Doig, 2004).

 

1. Reduce Risk of Rapestage grappleswith the indirect benefits to female Internally Displaced Persons whose exposureto violence may decrease as fuel-efficient stoves limit their trips outside refugee camps: “(1) The number of firewood collection trips;

(2) The number of hours spent during oneroundtrip to collect firewood; and(3) The number of kilometers traveled duringone roundtrip to collect firewood” (Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Settings: Cookstoves and Fuels, 2016).

 

• Building an Economy in Darfur stage explores ways to build an economy in Darfurby deliberately restructuring market roles and exchanges of FES. “Darfur lies on the edge of a desert in an area that suffers both from an overall paucity of resources and a high degree of variability in the availability of resources. This scarcity and variability have required a high level of community management, given that different groups use resources in different ways for their livelihoods. The environmental aspect of the conflict, therefore, must be analyzed [sic] with reference to governance and livelihoods” (Bromwich, 2008).

The evolving FES intervention model atStage III has several of the resilience characteristics and livelihood outcomes; nevertheless, it cannot be considered a “standalone” resilience program.Moreover, in Sudan, it lacks two essentialprinciples of resilience:  national ownership and effective participation ofDarfuri women in decision making.

A best practice resilience interventionrequires comprehensive, dynamic, and proactive continuous improvement. It is a multi-sectoral and integrated intervention with a single intended outcome—to create communities resilient against shocks or stresses which could not be achieved by an individual intervention like FES programming.  

Given the chronic nature of the conflict and the dependency on humanitarian support, there is a need for longer-term and more sustainable solutions. There is a growing desire to find an empirical intervention to strengthen local communities’ resilience to shocks, build up assets, and reduce dependency on humanitarian support. The international response in Darfur has been dominated by short-term humanitarian reactions focusing on meeting acute needs and saving lives. This classical humanitarian response has created aid dependency and has impacted community members’ appetite to seek livelihood opportunities.

 

Thus, everyone seeks innovative programs to respond to critical humanitarian needs, help returning populations bounce back for the better, and link longer-term humanitarian programs to an exit strategy.   

Building resilience as an intervention mechanism

Darfur’s protracted humanitarian catastrophe has contributed to international donors’ fatigue. Taxpayers are demanding and putting a stronger emphasis on transparency and austerity in overseas humanitarian and development assistance.  Donors, policymakers, development, humanitarian practitioners, international humanitarian and development agencies,NGOs, and Faith-based organizations (FBOs)must ride the wave of change (Brattberg, 2013).

This much is indisputable: doing humanitarian business as usual, despite its saving lives, does not help the affected populations tolerate any other anticipated shocks and stresses. All parties are looking for new intervention with a mobilizing banner fulfilling everyone’s wishes, a one-shotinvolvement ensuringthe best value for money and creating self-dependency for the beneficiaries. This has created a demand for “resilience.”

“Resilience” is a concept born in psychologicaltheory, structural engineering, and corporate strategy that has also come to describe the desired outcome in the humanitarian and development sector(Bahadur, Ibrahim, & Tanner, 2010).Resilience suitably describes a readily desiredmental model for humanitarian and development programs (Bahadur, Ibrahim, & Tanner, 2010)

Rather than critiquing the merits of resilience as a goal, this paper focuses on the value of Fuel-efficient Cookstoves Programs as resilience intervention mechanisms proposed by many agencies and non-governmental organizations.

In the context of Sudan, resilience is shaped by the following donors’ visions: US Office for Federal Disaster Assistance (OFDA), the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Department for International Development, UK “DFID”(Development Aid at a Glance: statistics by region, 2013) (OECD, 2013). These are the four largest humanitarian donors in 2012, and they plan to continue in Sudan for the foreseeable future.

The donors’ definitions most properly shape the resilience programs implemented by UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Sudan. As a sunflower turn toward the sun, these organizations are motivated by the scarcity of funds and lack of creativity. The USAID and DFID mental models for resilience will dominate because of the size of their contribution and their political leverage. USAID and DFID lead the influential donors in Sudan with aparticular focus on Darfur. Most recently, DFID announced the allocation of UK£67 million for a resilience programin Sudan(Project Details SHARP-Sudan Humanitarian Assistance and Resilience Programme, 2013). The intent was to spend this money during DFID’s operational plan for 2013-2015.

DFID and USAID conducted bilateral discussions on building resilience to food security threats in the Horn of Africa during March 2012. In their discussion note, they considered the following definition of resilience:

“Disaster Resilience is the ability of countries, communities and households to manage change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses – such as earthquakes, drought or violent conflict – without compromising their long-term prospects” (Frankenberger, et al., 2012).

The DFID and USAID Discussion Note adopted a hybrid conceptual framework(Figure 1). It integrates DFID’s Disaster Resilience & Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, TANGO Livelihoods Framework, and CARE Household Livelihood Security. This hybrid framework maps the role of context, shocks, institutions and livelihood strategies in resilience. It reframes all elements and processes, as well as the outcomes. The interaction of these elements with shocks and stresses in processes drives households toward pathways of resilience or vulnerability. It provides a panoramic view enablingidentification of the cross-cutting areas and intervention entry points.

Figure 1:The resilience framework.Adapted from DFID Disaster Resilience Framework (2011), TANGO Livelihoods Framework (2007), DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (1999) and CARE Household Livelihood Security Framework (2002) from (Frankenberger, et al., 2012, p. 5).

The USAID/UKAID Discussion Note outlined the following ten core principles for resilience programming (Frankenberger, et al., pp. 2-3):

1. Support a changein the balance ofeffort and resources from humanitarian assistancetoward disaster risk management (DRM), climatechange adaptation (CCA), livelihood support, andsocial protection (SP);
2. Recognize and respond to the different needs,capabilities, and aspirations of different people,especially those of the most vulnerable groups(women, children, orphans, elderly, displaced);
3. Build the capacity of formal and informal institutions for equitable natural resource

management, conflict mitigation, and socialprotection;

4. Advocate for and promote improved governance among government institutions and civil society by supporting responsive policies, transparent resource allocation, and greater accountability;
5. Inform coherent policy formulation and program design that responds to ongoing change in environmental, social and economic conditions;
6. Enable community participation by identifying and engaging customary institutions and valuable forms of traditional knowledge for coping with climate variability;
7. Promote the empowerment of women by creating more significant opportunity for their involvement in key institutions and decision-making processes;
8. Be owned at the country level by linking with national policies and investment plans;
9. Build effective partnerships, drawing on thecomparative advantages of a wide range ofstakeholders; and,
10. Do no harm, ensuring neither humanitarianresponses nor development initiatives undermine theability of vulnerable populations to achieve livelihoodsecurity over the long-term.

The definition and guiding principles of resiliencies programs indicate some common resilience elements in the ongoing interventionsuggesting resilience does not necessarily mean creating an entirely new programs paradigm. There is a need to identify the elements, markers, best practices, and lessons learned in the past and in ongoing programs to consider strengthening the current and future resilience programs design. This encourages thinkingacross sectors and leaves behind the classical sectoral frame towards a more holistic and integrated approach.

Fuel-efficient Cook-stoves “FES” Programming

Darfur has minimal established resilience programming, and no standard definition of the term among humanitarian and development stakeholders(Salih, 2013). To date, resilience programs have focused on financial/economic resilience and considering livelihood diversification as theprimary resilience strategy. The programs have targetedbuildingthe ability of households and communities to withstand the shocks and stresses through income generation only. The humanitarian actors rarely consider the multi-causal factors of shocks when programming. Many UN agencies and NGOs have considered fuel-efficient cook-stoves programs as one of the few resilience intervention programs implemented in Darfur (Abdulmonin, 2013; Salih, 2013).

Fuel-efficient cook-stoves programs in Darfur can be traced back to the last century. The Greater Darfur region (which is now divided into five states) consumed around 21% (1.606 million tons of oil equivalent) of Sudan’sannual burning ofbiomass energy according to the available records for 2001 (Hood, 2009).

Biomass (fuels dependent on waste, vegetation, manure, and so on) had been the primary source of Darfur’s household energy for several decades.  During the startup of the Darfur conflict in 2003 and later the demand on biomass fuel had increased largely due to 1) the security situation impact on the supply chain for all resources of energy 2) Urbanization because of internal displacement, and 3) Climate change and deforestation.

Tradition, scarcity, and needs made open pit stoves the dominant source of heating and cooking. Smoke emitted by the fires presents a significant direct and indirect health threat, especially when used indoors. It rather quickly exhausts the surrounding natural vegetation. And, it puts women at risk of rape and other violence as they forage for fuels farther from home.

Image from Darfur Women Network.

Vulnerable community members (women and children) commonly play a significant role throughout the supply chain of traditional fuel. Women and children endure most of the health hazards, risks, and labor impact starting from the tedious and repetitive work of locating and harvesting biomass fuel to their role as end-users.

Nonetheless, Darfuri women, the main stakeholders in sourcing and using household energy, are not usually well represented in the decision-making mechanism and institution. FES implemented programs commonly do not proactively include beneficiaries in their designs. Furthermore, the recipients do not seek their legitimate role in influencing program designs due to literacy barriers and ignorance of their rights. The Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF International, also known as “Global Communities”), one of the primary implementers of FES programs in Darfurheld its first workshop for the end-users and other FES supply chain actors on 25 September 2008 at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs “OCHA” (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010). This workshop included IDP women representatives for Greater Darfur. It is considered a hallmark in the FES programs’ timeline as it recognizes the importance of the engagement of the different stakeholders and overriding illiteracy problems (Abdelnour&Branzei, 2010).

The implemented FES programs have passed through three different phases of justification using the macro- micro-, interlacing discourses which are closely interlinked to the global discourse(Figure 2). The discourse adopted at the micro-level is to prove eligibility and entry channel to the donors’ macro-discourse for resource mobilization (Abdelnour& Branzei, 2010).FES programs implemented in Darfur during 1997-2008 can be categorized according to conflict, technology, milestones, and market into three main stages. The NGOs are pragmatic in communicating the beneficiaries’ voices through the different stages according to the appropriateresources mobilization strategy (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010).

Nonetheless, “As of 2011, about 1.26 billion people do not have access toelectricity and 2.64 billion people rely on traditional biomass (fuelwood, charcoal, dung andagricultural residues) for cooking mainly in rural areas in developing countries” (Malla & Timilsina, 2014). FES programs implemented to correct this are either vertical programs or activities within programs. They either use a technology/efficiency approach or a people-centered one (Foell, Pachauri, Spreng, & Zerriffi, 2011).

FES technology has evolved over the years. In 1997 “Stage I” Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves were in use due to the relatively stable security situation at Darfur,which facilitated the LPG supply chain.There was also the small-scale production of mud stoves using local materials.

Image from theWorld Food Programme

Later, in Stage II (2005),with the influx of NGOs donors’ money, metal stoves were imported from India to respond to increasing needs.

In 2008 (Stage III), NGOs recognized the importance of using a hybrid approach“people-technology centric”in the implemented programs in Darfur. Several technology stoves became available, including solar and bricks stove (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010).                                                                         Image from Gold Standard

”Given the fact that biomass is and will remain the mostimportant fuel for almost one-third of the world’s populationand considering its adverse impacts on people and environment,the challenge is how to make its use sustainable and nonpolluting” (Kees & Feldman, 2011). The cornerstone for any successful FES intervention is the behavioral change among all the actors in the supply chain with aparticular focus on the end-users (Darfuri women).These interventionsrequire a political system that “acknowledges the relevance of efficient and modern cookstoves and supports a massive scaling-up by setting clear targets” (Kees & Feldman, 2011, p. 7599). Without significant behavioral change, “scaling-up still remains the major challenge” (Kees & Feldman, 2011, p. 7596).

Behavioral change requires long term intervention and investment as well as a good understanding of the Darfuri cultural context. In Stage I,the beneficiaries drove FES design and supplies. Stage II was directed by suppliers, program implementers, and donors.The resources were mobilized under the discourse of protectingwomen against rape and violence. (See Figure 2 below: Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010, p. 621). The Stage II and III FES supplies exceeded the demand due to duplication of projects and competition between the implementers for the donors’ resources in a sort of “resources heliotropism.”

Intervention failures require analysis to “underscore the need to monitor andrecalibrate development interventions to the evolving and idiosyncraticneeds of their beneficiaries. Most development organizationsheed shifting funding priorities and adjust their discourses strategically— and these changes pattern their actions” (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010, p. 626).

Poor coordination between donors in Sudan is also a common characteristic of failed interventions. It leads to duplication of many projects, misuse of resources, and failure to capture lessons learned from previous interventions. NGOs, governments, and elites within different sectors in many occasions, used poor coordination either to achieve tactical goals or for theirinterests. It is much easier to submit and secure donors with the previous written concept notes and proposals based on the past proclaimed successes.

Massive supplies characterized stage II with an increase in cost per unit because of the overhead charges and high logistic prices to a security fragile area like Darfur(Hamid, 2007). Despite this, organizations such as CHF either distributed the FES for free or at lower prices (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010, p. 622). However, “The CHF approach is not moving towards sustainability. IDP housewives will return home withoutthe knowledge of manufacturing the stoves, the best way to utilise [sic] their stove and the bestcooking practices. Practical Action, one of the leading organizations in user-centric [sic] approach, raised the concerns that CHF intervention is creating dependency” (Hamid, 2007, p. 2).

The criticism of this approach by different FES implementers may indicate competition for “Donors Dollars” using different rationales (efficient/technology-centric approach versus the people-centric and resilience). FES designs have movedfromlocally made mud stoves to metal stoves to solar energy stoves. Abdelnour and Branzei (2010) sketched an excellent overview of the FES intervention stages in Darfur categorized by conflict, technology, milestones, and market. I have added the different discourses used over the timeline for (Figure 2) fuel-efficient stove development interventions in Darfur. 

Figure 2 by Asaad Taha © 2015

Darfur Fuel-efficient cook-stoves: resilient programs or recycled solutions?

This is not an examination of resilience elements in fuel-efficient stove programs. It is not intended to measure either the outcome or impact of FES programs asthat is complicatedresearch requiring tailored baseline indicators and field surveys pre and post the intervention. Moreover, measuring the resilience outcomes and impactsremains an evolving science at a theoretical stage.

Building resilience is a continuous and dynamic process making it difficult to measure by nature. “Risk reduction strategies are preventative in nature and are therefore implemented ex-ante – before a shock or stress occurs”(Frankenberger, et al., 2012, p. 10). “The dynamic nature of vulnerability and the resilience-building process places particular importance on monitoring of both changes in conditions and households’ responses to those changes over time” (Frankenberger, et al., 2012, p. 35).Moreover, Darfur is still experiencing ongoing shocks and stresses hindering any real process of monitoring and evaluation.

My analysis depends mainly on analyzing secondary sources of data, including evaluation reports, articles, programmatic review, concept papers, case studies, project assessment, and interpersonal communications.  

As mentioned earlier, FES programs have passed through three stages. It progressed from being user-centric Stage I to supplier Stage II FES implementers/donors.The end of Stage III recognized the need for a hybrid approach.Under the discourse of building Darfur’s economy, more attention was given to the local FES production and supply chain. FES programs, including the Darfuris as producers and consumers has enabled the emergence ofa subsistence market for FES entrepreneurs and FES biomass. “Theoretically, severe disruptions in social relationships and patterns oftransactions among Darfuri internally displaced persons (IDPs)creates an exchange vacuum that offers a baseline for studying theemergence of subsistence marketplaces. As Darfuri IDPs reweave asubsistence economy, fuel-efficient stoves are one of the very firstmarket-based development interventions”(Abdelnour& Branzei, 2010, p. 2).

Among the poor, entrepreneurs develop business models based on the co-production and sharing concept due to the social interdependency created by the communal state of poverty and illiteracy (Viswanathan& Rosa, 2010). Their social networks penetrate across family and community boundaries allowing the passage and exchange of information. The information provesan asset, especially in security-fragile places. FES interventions contribute to resilience through creating assets for the FES beneficiaries’ chain (trainers, producers, suppliers of FES and solid fuel, and household users, i.e., the vulnerable group of community “Darfuri Women.”

By 2008 over 52% of Darfuri communities were engaged in FES market transactions (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010, p. 625). The Darfur Low-Smoke Stoves Project reports the CleanClear®program provides microfinancing to help women afford Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) stoves(Darfur Low-Smoke Stoves Project, 2019):

• 93% of women have more time to work which generates additional income for their families;
• 83% of households have cleaner kitchens;
• 71% of women said they have more free time to spend with families.

A related study in Sri Lanka found women in a war-torn region, motivated by their instinct for survival and the subsequently acquired ability to cope with shocks and stresses, are more entrepreneurial than women in secure conditions (Ayadurai & Sadiq, 2006).

The Berkeley Stove innovation claims their USDE60 unit “Could double the disposable income of therefugee woman over its 5-year life,” but they also recognize the supply chain challenge presented by a military, low-quality control and precision in a low industrialized economy(Gadgil, 2018). And, a UNAMID project to support local manufacture, distribution, and use of mud stovessaves an average of 99 Sudanese pounds per day on firewood by using the new stoves(Elzarov, 2019). (That’s USD$2.20/day in 2019 dollars.)

It remains challenging to identify economic facts in the continuing fluid sociology and economy of Darfur. But considering that a 2011 UNstudy reports almost 20 percent unemployed and nearly 47 percent below the poverty level, any cost saved has a significant impact on Darfur’s average household of six(Key facts and figures for Sudan* with a focus on Darfur, 2012). Against a UNOCHA 2013 claim of Sudan’s gross national income per capita income of USD$1,529, the impact of $803/year is clear. But given the condition of Sudan governance amid the tensions and violence in Khartoumfrom December 2018 continuing well into 2019, any reported statistics are questionable.

Nonetheless, FES interventions have created market transactions between the suppliers and consumers based upon mutual benefits, a “1-to-1 interactional marketplace” (Viswanathan, Sreehumar, & Arias, 2008). Such interventions, then, support the process of building the disrupted Darfuris social fabric and trust. This 1-to-1 interaction in the longterm enables the reconstruction of social relationships bypassing tribal and ethnic boundaries. It creates the benefits reciprocity, information exchange and mutual trust which are forms of “nonmonetary capital”(Sridharan & Viswanathan, 2006).

In these collective societies, trust is the dearest social asset in markets that depend mostly on non-formal business transactions. “Trust” is a currencyimportant to financial facilities and provides access to non-formal credit sources based upon a worthy recommendation. Building community members’ monetary and nonmonetary assets is one characteristic of resilience programs. But trust has been severely damaged during Darfur conflict and post the conflict.

It is worth noting the pure FES technology/Efficiency centric intervention — The Stage II CHF approach — associated with imported metal stove from India threatens the local production chain based upon local materials (mud) and skills. This type of intervention targeted scalability and coverage driven by donors’ hunger for activities — not the outcomes or impact. In the longer term, such intervention creates dependency because it destroys any emergent subsistence marketplace.

The imported metal stove from India unit cost is not within the Darfuris’ affordability threshold (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010; Hamid, 2007). The suppliers (FES implementers) through all the FES stages largely subsidize the FES prices to keep it within Darfuri affordability, and this does not produce the best value of donors/taxpayers’ money. This approach is antagonistic to several resilience principles:

1. Do no harm.In the short- and long-term, FES programs created dependency and marginalization and jeopardized household ownership;
2. Community enabling through the engagement and use of the local best practices and knowledge. FES programs, compromising to achieve scaling, have come to depend on imported FES unitsand raw materials which resulted in the extinction of local knowledge and destroyed the local producers’ chain;
3. Capacity building of formal and non-formal institutions. Despite the Stage III FES intervention focus on the actors of the FES chain, donors objected to formal bodies,except for the government institutions, from playing any implementation role. This prolonged the implementation chain and reduced the share of beneficiary per donated dollar because all international NGOs must work through proxy national implementers — long chain of National NGOs and Community Based organizations(CBOs).
4. Identify and address different needs as well as the ambition of various stakeholders especially vulnerable sectors of the community. The several attempts to include Darfuri women in consultation on the programsdid not have a sustainable influence making the efforts look like public relations campaigns. For instance, they have neglected the consumers preference for the sake of scaling; while the findings indicated that the mud model stove (locally made) is the first choice of FES owners (90%), 49% of the women who own both mud and metal stoves prefer the mud stove (Abdelnour & Branzei, 2010).

On the other hand, the embedding of the Darfuri women in the production and supply chain of FES revitalized the local markets in four ways. First, they kept prices low by making stoves locally with indigenous materials. Second, they empowered women providing income, relieving their time cooking, and reducing their risk of gender-based violence. Third, correctly configured, the FES programs position Darfuri women as produced and users. And, fourth, effective programs integrate feedback to improve the process and program.

However, the past FES programs lacked the national ownership and effective engagement of Darfuri women in program design and monitoring.Recently, WFP introduced Safe Access to Firewood and Alternate Energy “SAFE” program, an attempt to overcome the shortfall of the previous intervention(Abdulmonin, 2013). It is a multi-sectoral program including capacity building, agriculture-based livelihoods and FES activities led by CBOs (including Women Interest Groups “WIGs”) starting from the design, implementation, and monitoring at the village level(Abdulmonin, 2013).

Conclusion 

 

“The WMO and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction estimate that ‘one dollar invested in disaster preparedness can save seven dollars’ worth of disaster-related economic losses’ (WMO, 2009)’. Thus, investing in resilience programming that reduces exposure to risk is significantly more cost-effective than post-disaster responses” (Frankenberger, et al., 2013).

To monitor, measure, and maximize resilience, “we must know not only how households spend supplemental income from social protection mechanisms (there is ample research on this), but also the long-term impacts of those decisions, which kinds of investments promote resilience, under what circumstances, and in what time horizon we can expect to observe the impacts of safety net assistance on household resilience” (Frankenberger, et al., 2013, p. 23)

While evolving FES programs in Stage III (the hybrid people/efficiency centric model) have several resilience characteristics, few programs can embody all the defined attributes. “It must be recognised [sic] that is not the intention to imply that the characteristics can or should be applied as a form of checklist” (Harris, 2011). The intention is to operationalize “the characteristics by unpacking what they could mean in practice” (Harris, 2011) from the experience of previous programs. Resilience programming is about being dynamic, desirousof continuous improvement, integration, and thinking differently from the design phase to the proper program closure.

Although FES current interventions have several resilience characteristics, they cannot be considered as standalone resilience programs. Resilience programsmust bemulti-sectoral interventionscreating ownership, breaking through the silos, and the arbitrary boundaries between different disciplines to address the current, short- and long-term needs of the affected people. The current gap in Darfuri household energy and the lack of feasible near-future alternatives justify FES intervention continuity. Many practitioners consider it an old wine which has undergone a series of bottling style upgrades; nevertheless, it is still needed as an activity or project under any resilience programportfolio.          

 

Author’s Bio:Asaad Taha is a Social Entrepreneur, Future Thinker, and Thought Leaderwith multisectoral expertise across the continuum of delivery from the strategic level to frontline field experience. He has worked for and engaged with global and national organizations across continents including UN agencies, Donor DFID, U.S. Government Department of State and USAID, European Union, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community-based Organizations (CBOs), and private sector stakeholders. Bilingual (English/Arabic) speaker, currently chair and serves as a member of several advisory groups, such as the Program Design Topical Interest Group at The American Evaluation Association (AEA) and Patient Safety CultureTechnical Expert Panel at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Asaad is Managing Partner at S4F Solutions™ and Principal Advisor to Nile Harvest™.

 

References

Abdelnour, S., & Branzei, O. (2010, Aug.). Fuel-Efficient Stoves for Darfur: The Social Construction of Subsistence Marketplaces in Post-Conflict Settings. Journal of Business Research, 63(6), 617-629.

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[1]“Umm Kwakiyya” is a Darfuri word used by R.S. O’Fahey in “Umm Kwakiyya or the Damnation of Darfur.” According to O’Fahey, it was used by one of his informants in the 1970s to describe the period 1874 to 1898 when, following the destruction of the First Sultanate (1603-1874), Darfur experienced the start of its endless miseries. According to O’Fahey, he had not reached the exact meaning for “kwakiyya.” He assumes it meant something in the lines of “the mother of damnation.” However, the right spelling and pronunciation for the word is “Umm kowaak,” an expression used by Darfuris to describe the period during 1874-98 as characterized by tribal conflict, attacks, killing, slavery and destruction of Darfuri social fabrics (Gasim, 2013).