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Ghana's Rural Liquefied Petroleum Gas Program Scale Up: A case study
Kwaku Poku Asante1, Samuel Afari-Asiedu1, Martha Ali Abdulai1
1Kintampo Health Research Centre, Ghana Health, P.O Box 200, Kintampo, Ghana.
Energy for Sustainable Development : the Journal of the International Energy Initiative
|June 4, 2020
Summary
Ghana's Rural LPG program, aiming to reduce fuelwood, saw low adoption due to high costs and poor access. An inadequate implementation framework also hindered success, with most households abandoning LPG within 18 months.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Energy Policy
- Environmental Science
Background:
- Ghana's Rural LPG (RLP) promotion program launched in 2013 to reduce fuelwood consumption and increase LPG access.
- The program aimed for 50% LPG access by 2020, targeting 170,000 rural households with cookstoves by 2017.
- As of November 2017, 149,500 households had received LPG cookstoves.
Purpose of the Study:
- To document Ghana's experiences with scaling up LPG adoption through the RLP.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of the RLP using the RE-AIM framework.
Main Methods:
- Desktop review and document analysis of RLP literature.
- In-depth interviews with key stakeholders in Ghana.
- Assessment of previously collected data from RLP field evaluations.
Main Results:
- The RLP is not achieving its stated goals; only 8% of households used LPG at 18 months post-distribution.
- High fuel costs and distance to LPG refilling stations were primary barriers to LPG use.
- Low LPG adoption was observed even initially, with 58% of households not refilling cylinders after nine months.
Conclusions:
- High fuel costs, limited LPG accessibility, and an insufficient implementation framework impede the RLP's success.
- Ghana is transitioning its LPG distribution model to a cylinder recirculation system.
- A well-documented implementation framework for the RLP was not evident.
