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Abstract

In the clean cooking sector, the successful application of Results-Based Financing (RBF) instruments has been observed for the climate co-benefit, where the market for averted greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has enjoyed strong performance; however, supplementing GHG emission-reduction credits with tradeable assets from clean cooking’s additional co-benefits requires developing rigorous methods and tools that can be confidently applied on a wide scale. Building Evidence to Unlock Impact Finance: A Field Assessment of Clean Cooking Co-Benefits for Climate, Health, and Gender field-tests novel co-benefit measurement methodologies for a selected (biogas) intervention in rural Kenya, demonstrating the methods’ feasibility and potential, as well as areas for further improvement. The report targets impact buyers, who need assurance that the achievement of pre-agreed project results is verifiable in a robust, cost-effective, and scalable manner, and project developers and implementers, who require much needed certainty of impact buyers’ commitment to purchase verified results in order to invest in and expand the scope of their monitoring beyond GHG emission reductions. The report’s practical lessons and guidance will be of interest to multiple stakeholders along the RBF value chain, including researchers and verification agents, technology suppliers, multilateral and bilateral donors and governments, and other cadres of investors.

Key Findings

Results-Based Finding (RBF) is viewed as an innovative mechanism to support resultsbased payment streams from impact buyers.

This study reviewed existing methodologies for measuring and quantifying the climate, health, and gender co-benefits from clean cooking interventions (Phase 1), followed by a field-test case (Phase 2), covered in this report.

The study coincided with and complemented an International Finance Corporation (IFC)–supported study on the same clean cooking intervention in another location of rural Kenya.

Using field-based emission factors as defaults, this study estimated the net reduction in black carbon equivalents (BCe) across the biogas program’s five-year, carbon-offset cycle at 963 tonnes for an estimated 84,000 biogas digesters.

Measured personal exposure (PE) to particulate matter (PM2.5) decreased linearly according to the fuel-use behavior of the primary cooks.

Female primary cooks in biogas-using households reported spending less time on cooking and drudgery, as well as greater satisfaction with time available for rest and leisure.

Existing methodologies to assess short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) and health benefits are feasible approaches that warrant promotion.

The methodology for assessing the gender impact of clean cookstove adoption requires further development, including new instruments for measuring time-use agency.

The study recommended key actions to improve the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of co-benefits monitoring.

Citation

“Energy Sector Management Assistance Program. 2023. Building Evidence to Unlock Impact Finance: A Field Assessment of Clean Cooking Co-Benefits for Climate, Health, and Gender. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39863 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”