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Indoor air pollution from cooking and heating with solid
fuels, including wood, dung and coal on open fires or traditional
stoves, is responsible for at least 1.5 million deaths every
year worldwide. Such pollution causes acute lower respiratory
infections in children under five years of age and chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease in adults.
"It is a travesty that 1.5 million lives a year-many
are children whose lives have not even started-are snuffed
out every year because of needless exposure to indoor smoke.
We have simple affordable solutions; let us ensure that they
reach the people who can benefit from, and live by, using
them", said Dr. Maria Neira, World Health Organization
(WHO) Director for Public Health and Environment. Exposure
levels are particularly high among women and children, who
spend the most time indoors by the fireside, and were responsible
for nearly 800,000 deaths among children and more than 500,000
among women in 2002. In developing countries, indoor air pollution
is the most lethal killer after malnutrition, unsafe sex and
lack of safe water and adequate sanitation. Sub-Saharan Africa
and South East Asia are particularly affected, with 396,000
and 483,000 annual deaths, respectively.
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| © WHO
photo/P. Virot |
The use of inefficient, polluting fuels places a major burden
on the health of poor families in developing countries, as
they do not have the resources to obtain cleaner and more
efficient fuels and appliances. This holds back economic development,
thereby continuing a vicious cycle of poverty. A new report
from WHO, "Fuel for Life: Household Energy and Health",
which was launched to coincide with the 14th meeting of the
United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, demonstrates
that investing in cleaner household fuels can yield a sevenfold
economic benefit in health and productivity gains. It gives
an overview of the health impacts of indoor air pollution
from solid fuel use and describes solutions to promote health
and development in the context of the household energy challenge.
It asserts that innovative policy approaches and a rigorous
acceleration of investments are needed to save lives and enable
development, and that progress in access to modern cooking
fuels since 1990 has been negligible.
In order to halve by the year 2015 the number of people relying
on solid fuels, 485,000 people will need to gain access to
cleaner fuels every day for the next ten years. The report
states that investing $13 billion per year to halve by 2015
worldwide the number of people cooking with solid fuels by
giving them access to liquefied petroleum gas shows a payback
of $91 billion per year, which will overcome a major barrier
to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Improved household
energy practices promote education, empower women, save lives-mostly
of children and mothers-and benefit the forests and climate.
In addition, evaluating the impacts of household energy projects
and programmes will shed light on how technical solutions
could be fine-tuned to maximize health, social and environmental
benefits, and by learning from experience will provide a model
for putting into action large-scale programmes that will be
successful.
Liquefied petroleum gas, biogas and other cleaner fuels represent
the healthiest alternative, the report states. Switching from
a traditional to an improved stove substantially reduces indoor
smoke. On average, 100 million more homes using these modern
fuels for cooking would lead to 473 million fewer people being
exposed to harmful indoor air pollution and 282,000 fewer
deaths from respiratory diseases per year. For as little as
$6, families can install better ventilated, fuel-efficient
stoves; making them available to half of those still using
traditional stoves would save $34 billion in fuel expenditure
a year and generate a $105-billion economic return every year
over a ten-year period.
WHO has developed a comprehensive programme on indoor air
pollution, which focuses on research and evaluation, capacity-building
and evidence for policymakers, by documenting the health burden
of indoor air pollution and household energy, evaluating the
effectiveness of technical solutions and their implementation,
acting as a global advocate for health as a central component
of international and national energy policies, and monitoring
changes in household energy habits. WHO works closely with
key partners, including the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air,
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, as
well as many research institutions and non-governmental agencies.
It is also actively taking part in projects in Kenya, the
Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Nepal and Sudan,
aimed at introducing improved stoves and other technical solutions
to reduce indoor air pollution. It is a partner in the most
sophisticated scientific study to date, which is being undertaken
in Guatemala, to assess how an improved stove enhances children's
and women's health.
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Indoor Air Pollution, Household
Energy
and the MDGs
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WHO has been assigned to monitoring
progress of indoor air pollution from cooking and heating
with solid fuels, one of the key environmental risk
factors to health, by regularly checking the percentage
of households using solid fuels at the country level
to reflect the progress in development and poverty-reduction
and serve as an indicator for progress in population
health.
Improvements in access to cleaner energy
and cleaner energy practices can contribute toward achieving
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Monitoring
household energy and tackling indoor air pollution are
inextricably linked to achieving these Goals, in particular
in reducing child mortality, promoting gender equality
and empowering women, opening up opportunities for income
generation and eradicating extreme poverty, and ensuring
environmental sustainability. WHO is directly responsible
for reporting the proportion of the population relying
or using solid fuels for cooking, which constitutes
as an indicator to MDG 7-ensure environmental sustainability-and
is used to assess progress towards the integration of
the principles of sustainable development into country
policies and programmes, and to reverse the loss of
environmental natural resources.
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger. The security of household
livelihoods depends on the health of its members. Being
ill or having to care for sick children reduces earning
potential and leads to additional health-care and medication
expenses. Improved household energy practices provide
opportunities for income generation and the development
of small enterprises. Improved stoves that use less
fuel facilitate more efficient food preparation, and
access to electricity ensures a source of light for
economic activities in the evening.
2. Achieve universal primary education.
With less time spent on fuel collection and very little
lost time due to ill health, children will have more
available time for school and homework. Better lighting
allows them to study at night without straining their
eyesight.
3. Promote gender equality and empower
women. Alleviating the burden of collecting fuels
and cooking by using more efficient devices will free
women's time for adult education and childcare. Involving
women in household energy decisions will contribute
to their empowerment and promote gender equality. Also
owning a less-polluting stove raises indirectly a person's
prestige through a soot-free kitchen environment.
4. Reduce child mortality. Reducing
exposure to indoor air pollution will make a significant
contribution to decreasing child morbidity and mortality,
responsible for nearly 1 million deaths in children
under five years old.
5. Improve maternal health. Women
are most at risk for chronic respiratory and pulmonary
diseases as they are usually in charge of cooking. Cutting
down indoor air pollution will contribute to better
respiratory health among mothers who spend time by the
fireside after having given birth.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases. Exposure to indoor air pollution increases
the risk of tuberculosis-one of the leading causes of
death globally-with approximately 1.6 million deaths
every year.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
The reliance on fuelwood can put considerable pressure
on forests, particularly where biomass is scarce and
the demand for wood outweighs natural regrowth. Depending
on the environmental context, deforestation is a driving
force for land degradation and desertification. Traditional
stoves have low efficiency. As a result, a large percentage
of fuel energy is lost as products of incomplete combustion,
as in gas methane that has a greenhouse effect many
times greater than carbon dioxide. Environmentally-sound
technologies, such as energy-efficient devices based
on renewable sources, can substantially reduce harmful
impacts on the environment and human health.
8. Develop a global partnership for
development. Development agendas and partnerships
must recognize the fundamental role that clean household
energy practices play in economic and social development.
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