Impact

Nearly three million people in Yemen burn wood, charcoal, animal dung, crop residue or coal in open fires or in inefficient stoves for daily cooking and heating. This reliance on inefficient cookstoves and fuels leads to a wide variety of environmental problems including environmental degradation, air pollution, and climate change.

Black carbon, which results from incomplete combustion, is estimated to contribute the equivalent of 25 to 50% of carbon dioxide warming globally, and residential solid fuel burning accounts for up to 25% of global black carbon emissions, about 84% of which is from households in developing countries.

We are working on improving access to household fuel and lighting using appropriate technologies and renewable energy, increasing access to energy for schools, health centers, and other institutions, and establishing and managing sustainable forestry resources for fuel provision and environmental protection.

The illnesses caused by smoke exposure from toxic cooking methods lead to serious problems for the health and livelihoods of these families, hampering their ability to escape grinding poverty. Women in the rural areas of Yemen are at risk of head and spinal injuries, and pregnancy complications from the strenuous task of carrying heavy loads of firewood or other fuels, and may also suffer from gender-based violence, animal attacks, dehydration, and skin disorders. Frequent exposure to cookstove smoke can also cause disabling health impacts like cataracts.

Daily exposure to toxic smoke from traditional cooking practices is one of the world’s biggest – but least well-known killers. Penetrating deep into the lungs of its victims, this acrid smoke causes a range of deadly chronic and acute health effects such as child pneumonia, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and heart disease, as well as low birth-weights in children born to mothers whose pregnancies are spent breathing toxic fumes from traditional cookstoves.

More than 2 million people are displaced from their homes due to conflict, war, and disaster. Almost all lack access to clean cookstoves and fuels, but  we and our humanitarian partners are working to change that.

We are focusing on safe and reliable access to energy for cooking, lighting, and powering is a basic need. Creating programs to improve safe access to the fuel and energy saves lives and protects livelihoods in emergencies and crisis settings by integrating energy needs into emergency preparedness and response.

Encourage women, youth and local entrepreneurs through participation in the solutions value chain, earning income from product design, engineering manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sales of renewable energy and sustainable agriculture products. launching social campaigns, such as clean up initiatives and youth events.

Developing alternative sources of income through vocational and on-the-job training. Women and other disadvantaged groups are improving their level of education in informal learning centers. This enables participants to advance socially and to play a part in community decision-making.

TRI-S has a strategy to increase the role of women and address gender issues to scale adoption. Gender-informed practices help enterprises understand the impact of gender dynamics on their business, and help agriculture sector players leverage opportunities to empower women and promote gender equality.

The major challenges to scaling women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship include: the lack of capacity of enterprises to address gender; financing for gender components in projects; evidence of gender impacts in the sector; and the need to influence policies through awareness-raising and advocacy.