DSS4ICS: A GIS-Based Decision Support System for Evaluating Clean Cooking Investments in Sub-Saharan Africa Across Multiple Potentials

Background and issues: 970 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) rely on inefficient cooking devices, posing health, environmental, and social challenges. Improved Cookstoves (ICS) offer a transient solution for clean cooking, but their high cost hinders broad adoption. Carbon finance can bridge this gap by issuing carbon credits for ICS distribution interventions, associated with their achieved emission reduction (ER) and traded in Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCM). The proper calculation of ER is crucial to provide realistic estimations of revenues from carbon credit trading, that more and more represents a possible economic leverage for local development and clean cooking projects in Africa. Among the other inputs, the effective calculation of carbon credits necessitates precise quantification of the fraction of non-renewable biomass (fNRB). However, the existing methodologies for computing the ER of an ICS distribution project are rarely replicable and do not offer open-access data. Even more rarely, they include the analysis of dimensions beyond the techno-economic ones, hindering informed and effective decision-making for policymakers and investors. Objectives: the work has two objectives; (1) to provide a sound scientific and replicable methodology for computing the fNRB at the geographical scale of interest; (2) to develop a holistic decision support system (DSS) able to encompass environmental, techno-economic, social and regulatory potentials, with a focus on SSA countries. Methodology: the work develops in three modules: (i) the first module harmonizes data from different sources (including GIS layers) and computes the environmental (fNRB) and techno-economic (ER) potentials; (ii) the second module computes the social and regulatory potential; (iii) the third module integrates the four potential into a DSS, that interfaces with the user for assigning weights. Expected results: clustering of African countries depending on the different potentials; the DSS is provided as a tool to decision makers for assessing ICS investments under multiple potentials. Policy recommendations: we advocate the uptake of informed decisions in ICS distribution projects in SSA based on the dimensions encompassed by the DSS.