Publications & Resources

This paper defines eCooking Delivery Models (eCDMs) as the activities, resources and actors needed to deliver modern electric cooking (eCooking) appliances to end-users in need of innovative clean cooking solutions in the Global South. We define the eCooking Market System (socio-economic and cultural context, the enabling environment, market chains, support services) which conceptualizes the real-world market factors and surrounding context related to enabling the uptake and sustained use of eCooking appliances by end-users. We also describe an approach to design eCDMs and identify the support services required to start and sustain the market delivery infrastructure. The eCDM concept and approach are demonstrated through designing eCDMs and support services for electric pressure cookers (EPCs) for two end-user segments in Tanzania:

More than half of the 1 billion people in the world without electricity live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and rapid population growth is projected to outpace electric grid expansion. For communities across the region, a consistent and affordable supply of electricity can open new possibilities for socioeconomic progress. Mini-grids—electrical generation and distribution systems of less than 10 megawatts—can play a role. These decentralized technologies are expected to bring power to 140 million Africans by 2040.

We gratefully acknowledge the UK Aid-funded Modern Energy Cooking Services Programme for supporting the research that has enabled the writing of this working paper. We would also like to thank the team at the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Research Organisation (STIPRO) who organised the Innovation System History workshop held in Dar es Salaam on 5 February 2020, and we would like to extend our thanks to all those who participated so enthusiastically in the workshop. Although the workshop provided a strong basis upon which we could conduct further research, the depth of that research was achieved thanks to the willingness of those we interviewed to give up their valuable time. We are deeply grateful for this and hope we have reflected the state of the electric cooking socio-technical innovation system satisfactorily. In addition to the work of the STIPRO team in organising the Dar es Salaam workshop, TaTEDO, Anna Clements and Jon Leary provided invaluable assistance for which we are also deeply grateful. And, finally, we would like to thank Meron Tesfamichael and Sandra Pointel for their comments on an earlier draft of this working paper, which have helped us strengthen many of the points we made.

This report presents a gendered analysis of eCook in Tanzania, with the aim of informing the development of a battery-supported electric cooking concept, eCook. It is part of a broader programme of work, designed to identify and investigate the opportunities and challenges that await in high impact markets such as Tanzania.