Operationalizing integrated household energy planning : the case of Malawi
Doctoral Thesis
1996
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
Recognition since the 1970s of the adverse consequences in developing countries of deforestation on the livelihood of farmers and the poorer segments of urban households, and on the environment, has led to extensive investments in energy research and household energy projects. Poor performance and failures of woodfuel projects and other policy interventions have led to a radical reconsideration and criticism of the woodfuel scarcity paradigm and associated methodologies and assumptions. Recent research has been focussing on developing a new methodological framework for integrated fuelwood and household energy policies. Against this background, the main objective of this research consists in exploring and evaluating concepts and hypotheses which may be used for developing an effective analytical planning and policy framework for household energy policy. Empirical research has been conducted by the author over several years in Malawi. At the macro level, the often poorly-understood and contentious relationship between population growth, land tenure and land-use changes, fuelwood use and deforestation is examined. Another major methodological theme in household energy policy formation is the conceptualization of farm household decision behaviour and their responses to fuelwood pressures. Relationships between fuelwood and agricultural policies are examined. A range of rural and urban policy interventions are studied in depth. The empirical evidence from Malawi shows that there is no universal set of policy prescriptions which neatly apply to all household energy issues in developing countries. Nevertheless, the complexity of the interlinkages between factors impacting on household energy production, distribution and use points to the need for a coherent conceptual framework. Integrated Household Energy Planning provides this, not in a simple step-by-step set of procedures, but rather in terms of an approach which is sensitive to the range of factors which need to be analyzed and understood before policies are formulated and implemented.
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Bibliography: leaves 355-379.
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Romahn, B. 1996. Operationalizing integrated household energy planning : the case of Malawi. University of Cape Town.