To add to the idea about perceived value that Cecil and Crispin started -- One of the most eye-opening readings on the topic for me was the publication "Cookstove and Markets: Experiences, Successes, and Opportunities"<http://www.hedon.info/docs/GVEP_Markets_and_Cookstoves__.pdf>published by GVEP International in 2009.
(Jan -- there is also some discussion in the paper regarding your original question about price, convenience, performance) On pg 38, the authors present a figure comparing attributes of products marketed to the poor. It turns out that the problem is more nuanced than "the price is right". The decision-making steps presented in the paper are: "Initial Perceived Value" "Affordable with Disposable Income" "Affordable with Microfinance" "Magnitude of Change [to daily habits]" Something like Coca-Cola has a high perceived value, is affordable with disposable income, and requires little change to daily habits. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that cook stoves in rural areas face barriers at each of those stages. - low perceived value because of *gradual* negative impact to health - generally not affordable with disposable income - and often a big change to daily habits Marc Paré B.S. Mechanical Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology | Université de Technologie de Compiègne my cv, etc. | http://notwandering.com On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Anand Karve <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Jan, > I keep hearing about the people earning less than US$2 per day. In a > lot of cases the income is shown to be low in statistics generated by > the Government of that particular country. Even a landless labourer in > a village in India would have some hens and a goat (or ducks and a > pig), the income from which never enters the Government statistics. > Another fact of life is that people's priorities differ from ours. > Some of us feel that the poor should have a clean latrine and a clean > kitchen, but the poor themselves often consider a cellphones in their > pocket and a t.v. in the house to be more important. Also the rate of > conversion of a dollar into the local currency is often manipulated by > the Government. 2 Dollars in a poor country has a relatively high > buying power in that country than in the US. > Yours > A.D.Karve > > On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Jan Bianchi <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Do any of you know of a list that compares different clean burning cook > > stoves not only by fuel type, efficiency and emissions, but also by price > > and the presence or lack thereof of subsidy? I don’t see the latter > > information on most websites that describe different stoves. > > > > > > > > If there isn’t such a list, maybe we could work to put together one by > each > > of you sending a link that describes a stove and stating the price they > are > > currently being sold for in local communities, together with whether > there > > is a subsidy and if so the amount? I’d be happy to work with Erin to put > > together such a list from your answers. > > > > > > > > For people living on $2 a day or less, what for example would be > considered > > a low cost stove? Middling? High? > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Stoves mailing list > > > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > > [email protected] > > > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > > > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org > > > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: > > http://www.bioenergylists.org/ > > > > > > > > > > -- > *** > Dr. A.D. Karve > Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) > > _______________________________________________ > Stoves mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: > http://www.bioenergylists.org/ > >
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