A Nexus Network thinkpiece has provided the basis for a research paper ‘Sustainable use of organic resources for bioenergy, food and water provision in rural Sub-Saharan Africa’ published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 50, October 2015, Pages 903–917.
You can read the full paper on the journal website.
The paper reviews use of organic resources in rural Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), impacts on household energy, and interactions with provision of food and water. The authors conclude that ‘better use of organic wastes can make an important contribution to sustainable provision of energy, food and water to some of the poorest people in SSA…for this potential to be realized, we need better recognition of three key points:
- 1. what is ‘best’ is different in different locations and will use different combinations of technical solutions,
- 2.implied trade-offs between energy, food and water provision can also be very different, and
- 3.‘success’, and who benefits, relies on complex interactions between what science makes possible and how decisions are made by individuals, communities and policy-makers.’
The authors of the paper are Jo Smith, Anke Fischer, Paul Hallett, Hilary Homans, Pete Smith, Yakubu Abdul-Salam, Hanna Emmerling and Euan Phimister.
Image credit: cooking using woodfuel. With thanks to Andrea Moroni on flickr.
