Context matters: Unpacking decision-making, external influences and spatial factors on clean cooking transitions in Nepal

Investigations of the underlying cause of slow and varied clean cooking transitions in rural areas of developing countries have predominantly taken an intra-household approach. That is, 'who adopts or who doesn't?' However, this approach tends to de-emphasise the contextual domain for household decision-making. It is equally important to know factors exogenous to households; 'which technologies are appropriate and where?'. In this paper, we examine crucial exogenous influences of cooking fuel transitions in overwhelmingly understudied regions, low-income countries with heterogeneous geographic contexts, using Nepal as the case study. A two-step method is employed. First, we developed a theoretical framework to understand these external influences using an expert survey. Then, we spatially tested how these influences affect household cooking fuel use in Nepal's sub national regions. Our results lead to the conclusion that there exist heterogeneous exogenous factors such as climate, access to markets and geography in low-income countries with heterogeneous geographic contexts that shape the access and use of a wide array of clean cooking technologies and fuels. These factors are contextually appropriate and must be coupled with other supporting interventions if clean cooking transitions are to accelerate in countries with low per-capita income and heterogenous geographies.

Automated summary

Research has shown that in low-income countries with heterogeneous geographic contexts, cooking fuel transitions are influenced by various exogenous factors, such as climate, market access, and geography. These factors must be coupled with other supporting interventions to accelerate the adoption of clean cooking technologies in such countries.