The state of knowledge socioeconomic and environmental impacts of wood energy value chains in sub saharan africa

1. The state of knowledge: socioeconomic and
environmental impacts of wood energy value
chains in Sub-Saharan Africa
Dr. Phosiso Sola, East Africa DRYDEV Program Coordinator, World
Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) p.sola@cigar.org
Dr. Paolo Cerutti, Senior Scientist, Center for International Forestry
Research (CIFOR),
Wen Zhou, Research Officer, Center for International Forestry
Research (CIFOR)
Co-authors:
Denis Gautier, Miyuki Iiyama, Jolien Shure, Audrey Chenevoy, Jummai Yila,
Vanessa Dufe, Robert Nasi, Gillian Petrokofsky, and Gill Shepherd
TICAD IV Side Event: The Future of Wood-Based Energy
25th August 2016
World Agroforestry Centre, Nairobi

2. Why this systematic map?
• >70% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) rely
on woodfuel as their primary household energy
source
• Woodfuel value chains are often associated with
detrimental health and environmental impacts
• Lack of sound evidence and limited understanding
of impacts  woodfuel policy interventions are
not based on the best available evidence

3. Objectives and Research Questions
• Provide a balanced and comprehensive review of the role and
impacts of woodfuel value chains across SSA.
• Primary review question:
• “What are the socio-economic, health, and environmental impacts of
woodfuel supply and demand in Sub-Saharan Africa?”

4. Methodology
Peer-reviewed protocol (Cerutti et al. 2015)
“What are the socio-economic, health, and
environmental impacts of woodfuel supply
and demand in Sub-Saharan Africa?”
Searches conducted on Web of Science, CAB
Abstracts, and Scopus
Quality assessment
131 papers
Full text screening
198 papers
Title and abstract screening
659 papers
Search results
3979 hits
Reviewer additions
21 papers
English, French, Japanese

5. Sources of the evidence base
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
NUMBEROFPAPERS
YEAR

6. Evidence base
0 20 40 60 80 100
Tree growing
Management of natural trees
Harvesting
Processing
Transportation
Trade/Marketing
Consumption
Number of studies
Woodfuelinterventionsstudies
2 3
28
58
19
0
20
40
60
Trees on farm Shrubs Forests Savanna/Woodlands Mixed
Numberofstudies
Ecosystem type at study site

7. Environmental impacts and indicators
Changes in
environmental
indicators
Forest cover
(natural or
planted)
Forest condition,
including forest
structure
Biodiversity C stocks GHG emissions Soil quality
Decrease 43 31 18 8 1 5
Neutral 9 8 3 3 0 1
Increase 3 2 2 2 3 5
Mixed 9 6 5 2 1 5
Total 64 47 28 15 5 16

8. Environmental impacts and indicators
Changes in
environmental
indicators
Forest cover
(natural or
planted)
Forest condition,
including forest
structure
Biodiversity C stocks GHG emissions Soil quality
Decrease 43 31 18 8 1 5
Neutral 9 8 3 3 0 1
Increase 3 2 2 2 3 5
Mixed 9 6 5 2 1 5
Total 64 47 28 15 5 16
0 10 20
deadwood-domestic
deadwood-commercial
livingwood-domestic
living wood-commercial
mixed-domestic
mixed-commercial
trees on farm-domestic
trees on farm-commercial
Number of studies
Woodfuelsourceandprimaryuse
Decrease
Neutral
Increase
Mixed

9. Environmental impacts and indicators
Changes in
environmental
indicators
Forest cover
(natural or
planted)
Forest condition,
including forest
structure
Biodiversity C stocks GHG emissions Soil quality
Decrease 43 31 18 8 1 5
Neutral 9 8 3 3 0 1
Increase 3 2 2 2 3 5
Mixed 9 6 5 2 1 5
Total 64 47 28 15 5 160 2 4 6 8
< 10 km
10-30 km
30-60km
>60km
Number of studies
Distancefrommarket Decrease
Neutral
Increase
Mixed

10. Health and socioeconomic impacts and indicators
0
10
20
Indoor
pollution
Illness
Numberofcases
Outcomes of Woodfuel consumption
No change
Mixed
Increase
0 10 20 30 40 50
Assets
Employment
Equity
Costs
Profit
Income
Number of studiesSocioeconomicoutcomes
Decrease
Neutral
Increase
Mixed

11. The gaps
How much confidence do we have in the
results of the studies

12. Nature of the evidence base: geographical distribution and scale
0 5 10 15 20
Kenya
Nigeria
South Africa
Tanzania
Zambia
firewood
charcoal
both
• Regional bias
• Country dominance
• Few countries for environmental
impact studies
0
10
20
Cameroon
CongoDR
Chad
Gabon
Tanzania
Uganda
Kenya
Ethiopia
Sudan/SouthSudan
Somalia
SouthAfrica
Zambia
Malawi
Mozambique
Botswana
Zimbabwe
Madagascar
Nigeria
Ghana
Mali
SierraLeone
Senegal
Niger
Togo
Benin
BurkinaFaso
Multi
country
Central Africa East Afica Southern Africa West AfricaNUMBEROFSTUDIES
LOCATION

13. Nature of the evidence base: geographical distribution and scale
0 20 40 60
Plot/ Sample
Designated area/ Reserve
Village/City
County/District/Department
Province/Region
National
Multi country
Number of studies
Geographicscopeofstudy
• Small scale for general
conclusions

14. Nature of the evidence base: attribution
• Methodological design
• 56% of the studies did not include comparators
Comparator Total Environmental
studies
Socio economic
studies
Health studies
No. % No. % No. % No. %
Total 152 93 60 27
BACI (before-after & control-
impact)
4 3 3 3 4 7 0 0
Before-After 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
Control-Impact 34 22 26 28 3 5 7 26
Counterfactual 7 5 2 2 4 7 3 11
Multiple cases 25 16 10 11 16 27 1 4
Single case 61 40 38 41 30 50 13 48
Time series 18 12 14 15 3 5 3 11

15. Nature of the evidence base: attribution
• Methodological
design
• Did not always
separate impacts of
woodfuel
interventions from
other activities
0 10 20 30
History of woodfuel…
Property rights and tenure
Infrastructure development
Woodcutting
Lack of employment
Governance
Fire
Urbanisation
Livestock grazing
Location
Gender
Biophysical factors
Agriculture expansion
Number of studies
Contextualfactors

16. Discussion and Conclusion
• Renewed interest in the topic since 2000
• Presence of trade-offs between socioeconomic outcomes (largely
positive) and health and environmental outcomes (largely negative)
• 40% of the studies did not meet the quality assessment criteria of
this systematic map
• Most studies did not meet the methodological standards
• inadequate baseline information
• lack of comparators
• limited geographic scope
• No concrete evidence differentiating the impacts of woodfuel value
chain from other activities
• Major limitation – accessing non digitalised literature especially pre
1980

17. Implications for Research
• Urgent need to design and undertake
research using robust methodologies
• At appropriate scales in order to make
substantial conclusions
• Use of appropriate comparators for rigor
and reliability of results
• Long-term studies with corresponding
baseline studies of initial socio-economic
and environmental conditions

18. Implications for policy
• Woodfuel will remain important to millions of people (70-90%) in SSA, and
thus should be a priority for national and international policy and
development strategies
• Woodfuel use does have impacts on the environment and livelihoods;
however, policy formulation must also consider contextual factors as equal
or even greater determinants or sources of impact
• Policy formulation should adopt a multisectorial approach across health,
environment, and livelihood issues
• Important to recognize trade-offs between socioeconomic and
environmental outcomes