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Ken Chilewe and some of his workforce outside his thriving 'rocket stove' business.

The Aprovecho Research Centre has assisted the Programme for Biomass Energy Conservation in Southern Africa (ProBEC) in designing biomass stoves for institutional cooking in Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. Over 1,500 institutional stoves have been produced and sold by entrepreneurs.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. There is a huge problem of de-forestation, partly as a result of the high population density and also because large areas of land are taken up with cash crops such as tobacco and tea, which also use enormous amounts of wood for processing. Fuelwood and charcoal are the main fuels for cooking both in homes and institutions in rural areas.

In each country ProBEC has involved entrepreneurs in training workshops, where a woodstove of suitable efficiency for each country is developed and engineered with the assistance of an Aprovecho Research Consultant. The stoves are targeted at large institutions, such as schools, prisons and tea-estate kitchens, and use the Aprovecho 'Rocket' combustion approach to give high combustion efficiency and efficient heat transfer to the cooking pot. Practical experience suggests that using the stove saves at least 50% of fuelwood, sometimes more, which can give significant financial savings. The reduction in carbon monoxide and particulates provides a much healthier environment for institutional cooks. Stove production businesses are now well established in Malawi, Uganda and Lesotho, and have produced and sold more than 1,500 institutional stoves. Ken Chilewe, the main producer in Malawi, has made 700 of these.

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Owners of Patsari stoves add their own improvements, such as ceramic tiles.

The Grupo Interdisciplinario de Tecnología Rural Apropiada (GIRA) has developed the 'Patsari' stove for making tortillas and general household cooking, and has measured significant improvements in the health of women who use the stoves as well as reductions in air pollution and wood use.

About 95% of rural Mexican households cook with wood on open fires. Although this is bad for their health and uses unsustainable wood resources, the majority cannot afford to change to cleaner liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), even though the government encourages this. This situation is especially acute among poor indigenous people in the Central Mexican Highlands, where thousands of micro-enterprises run by women sell hand-made tortillas cooked over open fires for long hours each day.

GIRA started a stove programme to improve the health and security of households, bring new opportunities for small businesses, and improve the supply of wood. The Patsari stove, developed through a participatory approach involving stove-users, is an improvement on the 'Lorena' design with a more efficient combustion chamber and made of more durable materials, including a prefabricated metal chimney and hotplates. GIRA has shown that respiratory disease decreases by 30% and eye infections by 50% in women who use the Patsari stove rather than an open fire, thanks to 70% reduction in indoor air pollution. Fuelwood use is halved. Users greatly appreciate having cleaner, smoke-free kitchens.

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Bhikram Singh, 79 next birthday, operates a treadle pump in Uttar Pradesh.

International Development Enterprises, India (IDEI) has commercialised low-cost treadle pumps for irrigation. Over 510,000 pumps have been sold in the rural areas of the Eastern part of India, bringing substantial benefits to farming families.

Many farmers in the plains of the North and East of India rely on a single annual crop such as wheat or maize, watered by the monsoon. The income which they derive is small, and this forces many to seek casual work in cities such as Lucknow for part of the year, often disrupting children's education since the whole family moves to the city. The water table in the region is consistently high, so out-of-season crops can be grown under irrigation if a pump is available. Affluent farmers can afford to buy and operate diesel pumps. Poorer farmers may also hire diesel pumps, but often at very high cost.

IDEI commercialised low-cost treadle pumps for irrigation. The pumps are designed to be simple for people of all ages to operate, and most members of a household, including children, can take part. Typically, the household will pump for two to eight hours a day. Poor farmers can now cultivate and sell a variety of crops outside the normal growing season and bring additional land under cultivation because it can be irrigated. The increase in family income means that the cost of the pump can be paid back from the profits of one extra harvest. All components of the pumps are manufactured locally, and IDEI has successfully developed a supply chain of manufacturers, distributors, retailers and installers.

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Young woman assembling solar components for Rahimafrooz Batteries Ltd, at a Dhaka factory.

Rahimafrooz Batteries Ltd has played a leading role in the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development Project (REREDP) - a large scale programme to provide solar home systems (SHS) to rural households in Bangladesh. Rahimafrooz has manufactured and supplied the rechargeable batteries for over 75,000 systems, as well as charge controllers and fluorescent lamps. Rahimafrooz has also exported over 80,000 batteries for PV systems, mostly to Nepal and Bhutan.

Nearly 70% of households in Bangladesh are not connected to the electricity grid and so depend on kerosene for lighting. This includes most rural areas, and also the fringes of Dhaka. There are plans to extend the grid, but there is little prospect of substantial change in the near future. The REREDP, which is funded by the World Bank and GEF and managed by the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL), initially aimed to provide 50,000 systems by the end of 2007, but this has already been increased to 200,000 systems because of the success of the programme, and may be further increased. IDCOL provides Participating Organisations (POs) in the programme with subsidies and concessional loans to purchase PV systems in bulk, and the partners can then provide credit to rural households to buy systems. PV electricity can have a huge impact on people's lives, providing power for lighting, phone charging, education and entertainment.

One reason for the success of the project is the local availability of components from the manufacturing and development work of Rahimafrooz. The company has applied its considerable expertise in battery manufacture to the production of batteries specifically for PV systems, as well as diversifying into the design of charge controllers and fluorescent lamps for local manufacture. Rahimafrooz has also supplied 25,000 complete SHSs, mostly for IDCOL POs under the REREDP, and has provided training and technical support for these POs. Outside the REREDP, Rahimafrooz has installed 448 kWp of other PV systems.

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Reforestation just starting to make some progress in restoring a badly-scarred and eroded hillside, near Yan'an, Shaanxi.

The Shaanxi Mothers' Environmental Protection Volunteer Association (Shaanxi Mothers) is led by its founder Mrs Wang Mingying. It has installed 1,294 biogas plants in rural farming households in the Shaanxi Province of China since 1999. The plants produce biogas from pig and human waste.

The extensive use of wood and coal that has helped to fuel China's rapid economic growth has led to serious environmental damage. In Shaanxi Province (west China), soil erosion on the hillsides is widespread and springtime flow in the rivers has diminished to a fraction of the 'normal' flow. Erosion leads to dust storms and poor outdoor air quality. The use of coal and wood on open fires produces significant pollution. Faced with these problems, the Chinese Government has restricted tree-felling and ordered the re-forestation of the terraced hillsides. Farmers are paid to plant trees and ensure that they survive, and are encouraged to keep pigs. Subsidies are provided to encourage the use of biogas.

Shaanxi Mothers promotes the use of biogas plants connected to the pigsties. These plants provide clean fuel for cooking and lighting, improve sanitation and hygiene and help prevent further environmental degradation. The solid residue from the plants is a valuable fertiliser. Users pay about one third of the cost of the plant which can be covered by the savings they make on fuel and fertiliser within one to two years. Subsidies from the government and Shaanxi Mothers provide the remainder of the cost.

The Ashden Award to the Shaanxi Mothers' Environmental Protection Volunteer Association recognises the tremendous commitment of a small volunteer organisation in bringing the health and environmental benefits of biogas to rural communities in China.