Mali Solar Cooking Project -- One Year Later
Reprinted
from Home Power Magazine
The ultimate challenge in any society is making people change, even if it is for the better. There is a Bambara proverb in Mali, West Africa, that reflects this challenge: The habit of doing is second nature. To create any change among people, you have to accommodate their needs. To do this, you must be creative, motivated, and very understanding.
Evaluation
In 1995–96, I was in my native land of Mali with my friend Dave Berger to introduce 98 solar cookers in several areas of the country (see HP60, page 50). A year later, I was fortunate to leave another winter behind in the states and travel to Mali again. While I was there, I talked with some of the individuals who were involved in the solar cooker project. I was also able to evaluate the usefulness of the cookers to some of the people who had received them.
Time limitations and transportation constraints did not allow me to fully evaluate the use of the cookers in the very remote villages. My evaluation was not comprehensive or complete. We had given out survey forms when the cookers were distributed, but getting them back was much harder. Many had been lost or ignored. Individuals and organizations who were supposed to conduct the follow-up evaluations did not do so for various reasons.
Solar technology is still a very new concept in Africa, even though the use of it has been introduced by various means. The most common form is photovoltaic. But in Mali, very few people can afford this type of solar energy use because of the expense involved.
The Cooker
The solar cooker model Dave and I decided on was a simple design which reportedly functioned well in Ecuador and Kenya. It is made out of affordable materials that are widely available locally. The cooker design is a plywood box with two pieces of glass on top and a door on the front side. The inside four walls are covered with aluminum foil for reflection, and a piece of metal painted black is at the bottom of the box. A board is attached to the top with hinges, and foil on the inside of it reflects the sun’s rays into the box.
For the project to work effectively, local people had to be trained to build the cookers. Dave provided much of the explanation to the carpenters and the metal smiths, while I translated into French and the local language, Bambara. The local carpenters were smart enough to quickly understand, and within two weeks, we had our first cookers built. Before we distributed the cookers, we trained the users and educated the key personnel. We were assisted by regional newspapers and radio stations, and different organizations on the local level.
Hurdles
The structure of the Malian family and the basic diet were two major hurdles our project faced. Families in Mali are quite large—up to 20 people—requiring huge cooking pots. So we tried to target small and educated families (10 people or fewer) to start with.
One of the staples of their diet is toh, a dish similar to mashed potatoes, made out of millet flour. It is cooked by boiling water and then gradually adding the flour to the water. It is difficult if not impossible to make it in a solar box cooker, since it requires high cooking temperatures and frequent opening of the box.
Upon my return to Mali, I was able to contact some of the individuals who were involved in distributing the cookers to Malian families and some of the families who had received the cookers for use. We discussed how often the cookers were used, problems with use, durability of the cooker, and what the cookers were used for.
The use of the cookers was dependent on the season, even though the number of sun days is very high. It is also dependent on the daily activities of the family, especially the women, who were the primary users of the cookers. I found out that the cookers were most often used between 11 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, when the sun was most intense and the women were home to prepare the early afternoon meal. Due to the time and temperature needed to cook meals, cooker use was limited to miscellaneous cooking rather than full meal preparation.
Build on Failures
As with any project, success can only build on problems discovered in the early phases. During visits to several of the families, I was disappointed to find the cooker sitting neglected in some corner of a room. In conversation with the individuals who received the cookers, I quickly learned that the cookers had some problems. These problems usually fell into these categories:
The ever-present dust constantly settled between the two pieces of glass, and cleaning was very impractical on a daily basis. Glass is an uncommon and expensive material in Mali, and is not easily handled. Because it needed cleaning, breakage was a common problem. This problem might have been avoided by sealing the glass with silicone, but we chose not to use it because we only wanted to use materials available in-country.
Most families were not using the proper cooking pots or pans. The cookware was either not properly painted black on the outside, or was too heavy for proper heat convection. Users had been trained to use lightweight aluminum pots painted black, but they simply chose to use what they had, perhaps as a result of their limited financial resources and our inability to follow up.
In a few cases, the cookers were not properly stored when not in use. Cookers were left outside where animals could damage the glass, or left on the ground where termites could get at the wood, or left under leaks in the roof.
True Test
The dry, hot, and windy Sahelian environment of Mali, combined with a three month rainy season, were elements that truly tested the durability of cooker construction. Of the cookers I observed, the wood (local plywood), cardboard, and metal used in construction held up very well.
The aluminum foil used for reflection did not hold up in this environment. The foil became ripped or dirty, and lost its reflectivity over time. We chose the foil because it was available in-country. Perhaps some sort of imported reflective metal would have been more sustainable.
The ever present harmattan winds created a problem with the lid staying propped open. In many cases the hinges actually fell off the cooker frame. Perhaps a different hinge arrangement, similar to the hardware used on a piano bench, could be used. But this would add to the expense of the cooker. Already each cooker cost about US$70, about half the monthly income of a middle class family in Mali.
The cookers were limited to uses that depended mainly on cooking time, type of food in the Malian diet, and the time of year. I estimate that approximately 80 percent of the cookers being used were heating water. Very few families used the cookers to cook a full meal. Besides heating water, I found that the cookers had been used for cooking rice, cassava, sweet potato, fish, and bread. My Malian friends Ronna and Wague, who were visiting from Portland, even made a birthday cake in one!
Lessons Learned
Through the cooker project, I found out so much about implementing a small-scale project in a developing country. Here are some of the lessons I learned:
- Phases of the project must be continually tracked by the project originators within the country. It was very difficult to return after one year with limited means, and follow up with individuals and families. We placed fifteen cookers with the US Peace Corps for the express purpose of obtaining follow-up information, along with continuous tracking. They never replied to our numerous inquiries. Other local organizations did not provide follow-up information either.
- The beneficiaries of the project should provide or participate materially in the project. Without materially being involved, there is no incentive to keep up the level of interest or participation in the project. Again we hoped that the Peace Corps and local organizations would assist us here in exchange for the cookers, information, and training we supplied, but they did not.
- Due to limited time and availability of resources to conduct the project, I believe it would have been more effective to focus the project in one area at time. This would have made both implementation and follow-up easier.
- Use of in-country materials for the purpose of attaining sustainability is a useful premise as a guideline. However, a little silicone, or even some more durable reflective material—even if imported—would have helped.
- A faster cooking device such as a parabolic cooker may have found more widespread use, given the fact that in areas where wood is still available, wood cooks much faster than the box design. People generally want new things to work faster and better than existing technology.
Moving Toward Success
The cooker project provided me with such a great opportunity to work with people in my home country, to learn about the use of solar energy projects in developing countries, and to manage project funds. I am glad that we helped begin the education process about solar energy for some of my people, and that we actually provided gainful employment for many of them. I would like to thank Dave Berger, Lloyd Marbet, the Oregon Conservancy Foundation board, and the people of Mali who helped us through the project. In the end, I would like to thank Home Power for sharing our experiences with others. I hope we can learn from each other’s mistakes, and that future projects will move from the realm of limited success to that of complete success. Perhaps future projects will include more follow-up evaluation work.
Access
Author: Lanseni Niare,1736 NE 58, Portland, OR 97213
Tele: 503-335-3607
Dave Berger, Portland Community College,
9275 SW 8th Dr., Portland, OR 97219
503-977-4878
Fax: 503-977-4859
Email: dberger@pcc.edu
Oregon Conservancy Foundation,
12140 SE Bakers Ferry Rd., Boring, OR 97009
Phone/Fax: 503-637-6130
Email: cnsrvncy@teleport.com