The biogas initiative in developing countries, from technical potential to failure: The case study of Senegal

It is commonly agreed upon that the main impediment to a wide dissemination of household-size bio-digesters in sub-Saharan Africa is primarily related to up-front costs. As in other sub-Saharan African countries, the original assumption of the biogas program initiated by the government of Senegal, in collaboration with some international organizations, was to develop bio-digesters as viable marketable goods to alleviate poverty, improve health by reducing indoor air pollution associated to fuel-wood, mitigate deforestation, and produce bio-slurry as an alternative to non-organic fertilizers. The failure of the biogas program followed the failure of the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) program in rural areas. The present study has investigated the policies of cooking fuels and the socio-economic challenges thwarting the dissemination of biogas in Senegal, essentially focusing on the root cause of unaffordability of clean cooking energy in rural areas. The study has found that the development of clean cooking fuel in Senegal is hindered by ill-devised and poorly implemented government policies and the rampant, structural poverty of the rural populations, particularly that of farmers who are mostly involved in agriculture and animal husbandry that do not generate sufficient revenues. The Senegalese government’s biogas program that had aimed at installing 8000 digesters between 2009 and 2013 failed to reach its goals, as less than 600 units were built. This study proposes a new paradigm that associates market-oriented livestock farming, income generation, and household biogas production in order to successfully deliver clean cooking energy to farmers. A successful dissemination of clean cooking fuel by means of biogas digesters, in particular, needs to be accompanied with better access to financial resources for rural farmers who generally live in poverty.