Rethinking Clean Cooking Access: A Livelihood Approach for Rural Areas

ABSTRACT Clean cooking conventional approaches have been mainly technology dissemination, subsidies and awareness. These have not guaranteed a sustainable transition. This study explores a livelihood approach to drive the transition to clean cooking and overcome the limitations of conventional approaches. The study combined primary (village‐level) and secondary (global) data to identify the major factors that affect the adoption and use of clean cooking options in rural areas. All the factors were categorised into economic, technical, demographic, sociocultural and physical. Results show that economic factors are the major factors and come in various dimensions. Given this, a livelihood model was developed for clean cooking access in rural areas while improving the livelihood of the community. The livelihood model contains a holistic tripartite pathway for subsequent interventions. The study concluded that clean cooking interventions should be linked with the livelihood of the people to improve their economic capacity and ensure sustainable access.