Accelerating an Impact Industry: Lessons from the Clean Cookstove Industry (Kenya, Bangladesh)
WDI reviewed and documented lessons learned by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (the Alliance) since its inception. The Alliance is a public-private partnership hosted by the United Nations Foundation that aims to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and protect the environment by creating an efficient and thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The alliance’s goal is to facilitate the creation of a market that enables 100 million households in developing countries to access clean cooking solutions by 2020. Through interviews with staff and alliance partners in Washington, D.C., Kenya and Bangladesh, WDI sought to identify which of the alliance’s efforts focused on building the market for clean cooking solutions have worked, which of these efforts have been less successful, and how these outcomes might be translated into lessons learned and strategic options for the alliance. WDI also sought to develop insights that could be beneficial for other organizations interested in a global approach to market creation in low income settings.
This work also resulted in the development of a conceptual framework for how to accelerate impact industries, which was the subject of an article published online by The Stanford Social Innovation Review in June 2018. Stanford Social Innovation Review article.
Colm Fay participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Alliance at SOCAP 2018.