The Gambian Government with the support of the ECOWAS Commission has developed a national strategy document to promote and increase the consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas popularly known as, LPG, across the West African nation to increase access rates to clean cooking energy under the conditions of safety, sustainability, affordability and accessibility and prevent further degradation of the country’s forest reserves.
The Gambia’s national LPG consumption as a main cooking fuel stands at 1.9% of households nationally, with only 12% of households having access to at least one LPG cylinder. 97.5 % of rural households use biomass as their main cooking fuel (94% firewood and 3.5% charcoal) and in the urban areas, 31% and 52% of households uses firewood and charcoal as main cooking fuels respectively.
Data from the GamPetroleum Depot, 2021, shows that LPG consumption nationwide has witnessed growth since 2015. From a figure of 2,255 metric tonnes in 2015, the Gambia’s national LPG consumption has grown to about 5,343 metric tonnes as of 2021.
In the national strategy for the popularization of LPG, the Gambia has outlined a number of strategies to increase access rates to LPG by undertaking the following actions: reducing energy dependence on wood fuel and charcoal; improving living and economic conditions of the most disadvantaged families, developing an effective LPG Association with national recognition and clearly defined roles and mandate, full engagement with financial institutions to provide medium to long term finance for capital investments in production and business growth for entrepreneurs in the LPG and cookstoves business and soft loans to end users and developing well –established network of LPG mini filling stations and small and micro distribution in both urban and rural areas preferably no more than 500m-1km away from communities.
The Gambia hopes to raise $10,000,000 yearly to finance the strategies in the national LPG document which spans 2023 to 2050.
The Gambian national strategy for popularization of LPG was drafted by Cany Jobe, Director for Exploration and Production at the Gambia National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), who doubled as the consultant for ECOWAS Commission for this notable project.
Speaking about the LPG strategy document, Cany Jobe underscored the need for the Gambia to make a conscious effort to implement the strategies and action plans in the document noting that if they are implemented, it will help in mitigating climate change challenges and improve the health conditions of Gambians especially women and girls.
She said that during her study on the strategy, she learned that the long-term climate strategy of the Gambia does not include LPG.
“The alarming part of the climate change nexus underscores a call for immediate action, for the fact that we are rapidly losing our forest cover. The Department of Forestry is saying that we are losing 10,000 hectares of our forest cover every year and we have lost 97,000 hectares already. We are already marked as a Sahelian zone that is on the path to desertification. We don’t have firewood in ample supply. We don’t have charcoal in ample supply but still people are cutting down trees to make these things. So, the promotion and popularization of the LPG will help in mitigating some of these things that contribute to climate change. The inhaling of smoke could have very severe health implications. LPG has no nitric oxide emission, and it has much lower carbon dioxide emission than even the bio gas. It burns the cleanest out of all the non-renewable fuels. So, because of that, it will also prevent the high prevalence of respiratory diseases. Another health benefit is that it will remove indoor air pollution”, Cany Jobe explained.
She however stated that with all the above-mentioned benefits of LPG and contrary to popular opinion about the cost of cooking with LPG “it is cheaper at current prices than charcoal and firewood even with the price imbalance in the market. All it requires is government’s intervention to ensure there is mass awareness, promotion and popularization under the conditions of safe usage because a lot of people are scared of it, they do not know how to handle LPG”.
“At least 4 million deaths annually noted to be prematurely linked to the inhalation from the smokes and fumes and about 900 million Africans do not have access to clean cooking fuel, which includes 1.7million Gambians. Household energy contributes to 80% of Gambia’s energy needs, like cooking, heating and other domestic energy needs. 12% of Gambian households have access to an LPG stove, but actually it’s only about 2% that use it as the main cooking foil”, she highlighted.
The strategy targets to increase usage of LPG from 15% to 50% in the Gambia within the next seven years and from 50% to 100% by 2050.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com