Winrock International is a nonprofit organization that works with people in the United States and around the world to empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity, and sustain natural resources. Winrock works in household energy and health, seeking to assist communities in developing countries to address negative health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of household cooking and heating through solutions that are participatory, technology-neutral and efficient, culturally responsive, inclusive of gender considerations, technically and economically feasible, commercial where appropriate, and replicable.
In response to needs identified through its agriculture and gender-focused activities, Winrock has addressed household energy issues with a range of approaches, supporting regional exchange of experiences, micro-enterprise of cooking technologies, policy dialogue, and through household energy surveying and indoor air pollution monitoring. Winrock has worked with both USAID and USEPA under cooperative agreements to assemble and disseminate lessons learned from household energy programs and projects, and to develop and implement more effective approaches that effectively reduce maternal and child exposure to indoor air pollution through integration of behavior change communications, technology standardization, innovative commercialization strategies, and exposure monitoring.
Contact Information
Our Focus
Currently Winrock serves as the Pilots Administrator for 12 pilot projects throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, funded through the World Bank Biomass Energy Initiative for Africa (BEIA). This is in addition to its ongoing role as Coordinator of the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air, in cooperation with the USEPA (see Contribution to the Partnership section below).
Winrock's household energy work has included various initiatives, studies, and M&E activities in peri-urban areas in Kenya; rural households in the Philippines; urban households in Ethiopia (with Shell Foundation ethanol stoves); and policy activities in Guatemala. From 2004-2007, with funding from USAID, Winrock undertook two integrated household energy and health pilot projects in Peru and Bangladesh, which promoted improved cooking technologies and practices to reduce indoor air pollution. These included social-marketing activities, micro-enterprise development, and indoor air pollution monitoring.
Winrock’s non-profit enterprise, the American Carbon Registry (ACR), is the largest registry in the US voluntary and pre-compliance carbon markets. As the first private voluntary GHG registry in the U.S., ACR has over a decade of operational experience in high quality carbon offset issuance, serialization and transparent on-line reporting. The ACR is interested in working with established cookstove projects that are looking for carbon finance options.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
As part of its household energy activities in the Philippines, Winrock assessed women's perceptions, beliefs and knowledge about indoor air pollution through focus group discussions and a household energy survey. Both the FGDs and the survey addressed barriers to the adoption of improved stoves and fuels. As part of Shell Foundation's Breathe Easy Initiative, Winrock worked with local partners to implement a social marketing campaign in Kenya which included Shell Foundation funded household energy projects implemented by partners such a SCODE and IT Power.
Winrock's Shell Foundation and USAID supported project in Kenya had a strong market development aspect. Under the project, Winrock and partners provided women entrepreneurs in Ngong and Rongai slums with technical and financial support to scale up production of fireless cookers and stove liners.
None noted
Winrock will be monitoring each of the BEIA pilots, which will include (in collaboration with Berkeley Air Monitoring Group) IAP monitoring; efficiency testing; and monitoring of safety, durability and user acceptibility for those pilots that involve improved cookstoves.
In the Philippines, Winrock piloted an indoor air pollution monitoring protocol. Households were monitored for area levels and personal exposure to particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO). The monitoring protocol was adapted from ITDG's methods with inputs from experts at ITDG, WHO, JSI, and the universities of Liverpool, Berkeley and Illinois.
Indoor air pollution exposure was also monitored in Winrock's pilot projects in Peru and Bangladesh.
Relevant Publications or Studies
Our Contribution to the Partnership
Winrock International serves as the Coordinator of the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air, in cooperation with USEPA. Winrock co-organizes various Partnership-related events (including the 2009 PCIA Forum in Kampala, Uganda, and the upcoming 2011 Forum in Lima, Peru) and assists with the development of guidelines and protocols. Winrock also works with the USEPA to produce the PCIA Bulletin, a quarterly resource for Partners on various household energy related themes. As an organization involved in several household energy and health projects, we would like to share our experience with other Partners and collaborate on initiatives where our skills will be most effective.
