humanitarian · energy · environment · family: designed for the wrong person
sixty-five thousand acres burned for dinner
Refugees spend $2 billion a year on firewood while forests are cut down around their settlements — and clean alternatives keep failing at adoption
Problem statement
Over 90% of refugees in rural settlements have very limited access to modern, reliable, clean energy, including cooking fuel. Most refugees in low- and middle-income countries rely on firewood or charcoal for cooking, and an estimated 65,000 acres of forestland were used in 2014 to provide energy for refugee camps. Refugees collectively spent an estimated $2.1 billion on firewood in 2014. Clean alternatives exist and have been demonstrated: LPG cut firewood demand by 70% among beneficiary families in a Tanzania refugee camp. But distribution programs struggle to achieve sustained adoption when they address fuel supply without the maintenance, financing, and supply-chain support a permanent transition requires. Humanitarian organizations supply only part of refugees' firewood demand — as little as 10% of household demand — and energy access has been overlooked in the humanitarian agenda despite its centrality to daily survival.
Why this matters
The consequences of firewood dependence are compounding and gendered. Women and girls bear the primary burden of fuel collection, traveling 5–50 km in some settings and facing risk of gender-based violence, physical injury, and lost educational or economic time. Indoor cooking with biomass produces household air pollution linked to respiratory disease such as pneumonia and lung cancer, disproportionately affecting women and children. Deforestation around refugee settlements creates tensions with host communities whose forests are being consumed, undermining the social compact that allows refugees to remain. The environmental damage — in Bangladesh, over 820 tonnes of trees (over 4 hectares) per day were being cut to supply Rohingya refugee cooking fuel — has severely affected wildlife habitats there. And the financial burden falls on families with the least: firewood burned in traditional stoves that are under 15% efficient cost a refugee family of five at least USD 200 a year in 2014, and lack of fuel forces many families to sell part of their food ration, miss meals, or eat uncooked food.
What’s been tried and why it hasn’t worked
Improved cookstoves (ICS) have been distributed in refugee camps in countries such as Kenya and Uganda. They are more fuel-efficient than open fires — at least 25% efficiency against under 15% for a traditional three-stone fire — but face persistent adoption barriers: they carry an upfront cost and need regular repair and maintenance that refugee families may not be able to cover, supplying them does not automatically cut firewood use because the saving depends on how they are used, cooking techniques and food traditions don't always adapt to new stove designs (food cooked on an open fire is perceived as tastier), and where firewood is not scarce, willingness to adopt is lower. LPG distribution has shown dramatic results but faces sustainability challenges: cylinders are mostly imported or transported long distances, so supply can be interrupted by conflict, and irregular supply can deter uptake; the upfront cost creates a barrier ("LPG has always been viewed as fuel for the rich people"); and cylinders need regular refilling, so the approach depends on a long-term strategy for supply and support rather than a one-time distribution. Ethanol has been piloted in Sudan through a partnership with a local sugar producer (800 refugee families and 200 host-community families so far), and biogas has been tried in UNHCR projects in Afghanistan and in Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal, where communities were hesitant to cook with it because it was a taboo there; these remain limited to specific partnerships and haven't achieved scale. The fundamental pattern is technology-push: organizations distribute hardware (stoves, cylinders, solar panels) without building the market ecosystem — supply chains, maintenance capacity, financing models, and demand creation — needed for sustained adoption. Rwanda's October 2018 directive to stop distributing firewood in refugee camps by January 2019 shows what the switch demands: with limited cooking-fuel options in the market, the government and UNHCR first had to settle on briquettes and pellets for the smaller camps and LPG for the largest (Mahama, where some 10,500 gas stoves were distributed); UNHCR reports improved health, fewer SGBV cases and jobs for refugees as fuel re-sellers, and the work to keep reducing firewood use is ongoing.
What would unlock progress
A market-systems approach that treats clean cooking energy as a service rather than a product distribution problem. Key elements: (1) micro-enterprise models where refugees themselves operate fuel distribution businesses, creating economic incentive for supply chain reliability; (2) pay-as-you-cook financing that avoids the upfront capital cost the sources identify as a barrier to LPG and improved-stove uptake; (3) fuel-agnostic stove designs that can transition between available fuels (biomass pellets, ethanol, LPG) as supply chains develop, rather than locking families into a single fuel that may become unavailable; (4) integration of cooking energy into humanitarian response planning alongside food, shelter, and water — not as an afterthought. UNHCR's Clean Energy Challenge, which frames the goal as creating a new market for clean energy, and the Global LPG Partnership's $3.4M Tanzania market creation plan (time-bound subsidies for 88,000 refugees and 40,000 host-community members) represent early moves toward systems thinking, but the approach is still nascent.
Entry points for student teams
A student team could design a pay-as-you-cook business model for a specific refugee settlement, incorporating: analysis of current fuel expenditure patterns, design of a payment mechanism compatible with available financial infrastructure (mobile money, token-based), supply chain logistics for fuel delivery, and a financial model showing break-even conditions for a refugee-operated micro-enterprise. This is a feasible design proposal. A more technically oriented team could prototype a multi-fuel cookstove that transitions between locally available fuel types with minimal user modification, targeting the specific fuel landscape of a particular settlement. Skills in industrial design, business model development, behavioral economics, or energy systems would be most relevant.
Genes
Genes marked “+” were added in a later review.
Structural cousins: stuck the same way, in other fields
Sources
UNHCR, "Clean Energy Challenge," (accessed 2026-02-14). UNHCR Global Compact on Refugees, "Alternative Cooking Fuel," Supplemented with: Energypedia, "Cooking Energy in Refugee Camps- Challenges and Opportunities," UNHCR, "Refugees in Sudan reap benefits of clean cooking energy," IRENA, "Harnessing the power of renewables in refugee camps," 2018, UNEP-CCC, "Sustainable energy in situations of displacement," go to source 1 ↗ go to source 2 ↗ go to source 3 ↗ go to source 4 ↗ go to source 5 ↗ go to source 6 ↗
Working notes
Notes made while writing and checking this brief, shown as written. They use working shorthand.
- The `failure:wrong-stakeholder` tag applies because clean cooking programs have historically targeted the refugee household as a passive recipient of donated equipment, when the sustainable model requires treating refugees as economic agents who can operate and sustain market-based energy systems. The stakeholder is not a beneficiary to be equipped but an entrepreneur to be empowered.
- The `constraint:equity` tag applies at multiple levels: the financial burden falls on families with the least (many sell part of their food ration to buy fuel), the health burden is gendered (women and girls bear exposure and collection risks), and the environmental burden falls on host communities who had no role in creating the demand.
- Cross-domain connection: the technology-push failure pattern is identical to the improved cookstove programs in development contexts more broadly, and parallels the "provision of cooling technologies alone is not enough" finding from the UNEP-FAO report cited in `agriculture-smallholder-cold-chain-access`. In both cases, hardware without systems fails.
- The Rwanda firewood directive is instructive: the source presents it as a good practice in which alternatives (briquettes, pellets, LPG) were arranged to meet the January 2019 deadline. It is the mirror image of the adoption-barrier problem — instead of waiting for people to switch, the default option is withdrawn, which makes arranging the alternative first the whole task.
- UNHCR's framing has moved from energy distribution to the "Clean Energy Challenge," whose page says the goal requires "creating a new market for clean energy that has not existed before," tracking a trajectory from product thinking to systems thinking that parallels UNICEF's oxygen concentrator TPP evolution.
Reconciliation 2026-09-30: Round 6 read of the whole write-up against all six sources it names. All six were read in full on 2026-09-30: the Energypedia article (https://energypedia.info/wiki/Cooking_Energy_in_Refugee_Camps-_Challenges_and_Opportunities, direct) and the UNEP-CCC project page (https://unepccc.org/project/sustainable-energy-use-in-refugee-camps/, direct); the UNHCR Clean Energy Challenge page, the Global Compact on Refugees "Alternative Cooking Fuel" page, the UNHCR Sudan story and the IRENA 2018 article, all of which block scripts at the live address, were read from Internet Archive copies (captures of 2026-09-01, 2025-01-21, 2025-05-16 and 2026-01-14). Changes, in page order. (1) Title: "25 Million Trees Are Cut Down" appears in no source; the long title now says "Forests Are Cut Down". The display title "Twenty-Five Million Trees Burned for Dinner" is now "Sixty-Five Thousand Acres Burned for Dinner", the Energypedia figure ("65,000 acres of forestland was used in 2014 to provide energy for refugee camps"). (2) The Energypedia title on the Source line used a colon; the page uses a hyphen, now copied as is. (3) "no access to modern energy for cooking" overstated both the UNHCR page ("very limited access to modern, reliable, and clean sources of energy") and the UNEP-CCC page ("very limited access to reliable, clean and sustainable electricity or cooking fuels"); the sentence now says very limited access. (4) "An estimated 80% of displaced people cook with firewood or other biomass" and "20–25 million trees ... annually" are in no source; replaced by Energypedia's statements that refugees in low- and middle-income countries rely mostly on firewood and charcoal, and the 65,000-acre figure. (5) "Displaced populations collectively spend over $2 billion per year on inefficient energy" now reads as the source has it: refugees spent USD 2.1 billion on firewood in 2014. (6) The Dadaab figure ("24% of their limited income") is in no source and was removed. (7) "LPG reduced firewood demand by 70–80% in Tanzania and Bangladesh pilots": Energypedia gives 70% for the Nyarugusu, Tanzania beneficiary group; no source gives a Bangladesh percentage (IRENA says only that LPG distribution there had a "dramatic impact"). Now 70% among beneficiary families in a Tanzania refugee camp (the source describes a distribution to 150,000 families in Nyarugusu, not a pilot). (8) "repeatedly fail ... because" was softened to "struggle ... when", the strength the Energypedia conclusion gives it. (9) "Cooking fuel is rarely included in humanitarian food rations" is not stated; Energypedia says organizations supply only part of firewood demand, as little as 10% of household demand, and UNEP-CCC says energy access has been overlooked in the humanitarian agenda; the sentence now says that. (10) "WHO links to 3.2 million premature deaths annually" is in no source and was removed; the sentence keeps the respiratory-disease link Energypedia gives (pneumonia, lung cancer). (11) "can be irreversible" is not in the IRENA interview, which says wildlife habitats "have been severely impacted"; the sentence now says that, and "4+ hectares" is now "over 4 hectares" as IRENA has it. (12) "the financial burden is regressive: the poorest families pay the highest proportion of their income" is in no source; replaced with Energypedia's figures (a family of five spent at least USD 200 a year on firewood in 2014; traditional stoves under 15% efficient; many families sell part of their food ration, miss meals or eat uncooked food). The Source Notes bullet on the equity tag was softened the same way. (13) "Rocket stoves, institutional stoves", "most common intervention for two decades", "reduce fuel consumption by 30–60%", "crack or break within months" and "replacement parts are unavailable" are in no source. Energypedia says improved stoves have at least 25% fuel efficiency against under 15% for traditional stoves, carry upfront and maintenance costs, do not automatically reduce firewood use, must fit local cooking techniques, and are less wanted where firewood is not scarce; the paragraph now says that. (14) "after initial excitement wears off", "short-term", and "without ongoing subsidy, the recurring cost of gas refills exceeds what many refugee families can afford" are not in the sources; the LPG sentence now follows Energypedia (imported cylinders, supply interrupted by conflict, irregular supply can deter uptake, regular refilling needs a long-term strategy). The quoted phrase is now the source's wording, "LPG has always been viewed as fuel for the rich people". (15) "biogas ... piloted in ... Rwanda" is in no source; Energypedia's biogas cases are Afghanistan and the Bhutanese camps in Nepal, where communities were hesitant to cook with biogas because it was a taboo; the sentence now names those, and gives the Sudan ethanol pilot's scale from the UNHCR story (800 refugee families and 200 host-community families). (16) The Rwanda sentence said the 2018 firewood ban "creates crisis rather than transition". The Global Compact page presents it as a good practice: an October 2018 directive with a January 2019 deadline, a market with limited fuel options, a decision on briquettes and pellets for smaller camps and LPG for Mahama (some 10,500 gas stoves), and reported results of improved health, fewer SGBV cases and jobs for refugees as re-sellers. The sentence and the Source Notes bullet on Rwanda now follow the source (the bullet says the alternatives were arranged to meet the deadline; the page does not date the arrangements). (17) "the incremental purchasing pattern refugees already use for firewood (small, frequent amounts)" is not in the sources; the entry now points to the upfront-cost barrier the sources name (a barrier, not "a main barrier"). (18) "The UNHCR Refugee Environmental Protection Fund" appears in no source, in the body or in the last Source Notes bullet; both now refer to the Clean Energy Challenge, whose page says the goal "requires creating a new market for clean energy that has not existed before". The Tanzania plan's scope (88,000 refugees and 40,000 host-community members, time-bound subsidies) was added from the UNEP-CCC page. Confirmed in the sources and left as written: the $2 billion a year in the long title (USD 2.1 billion, Energypedia); over 90% of rural refugees (UNHCR and UNEP-CCC); women and girls as the main fuel collectors; 5–50 km collection trips (Energypedia); gender-based violence and beatings on collection trips (Energypedia, UNHCR Sudan story, IRENA); women and children disproportionately exposed to indoor air pollution (UNEP-CCC); tensions with host communities and the risk of restrictive refugee policy (Energypedia, IRENA); 820 tonnes of trees per day in Bangladesh (IRENA); the Sudan ethanol pilot with a sugar producer (UNHCR); the Global LPG Partnership's USD 3.4m Tanzania market creation plan (UNEP-CCC); Rwanda refugees working as fuel re-sellers (Global Compact page). Not checked: the cross-references to other briefs in the Source Notes (the UNEP-FAO cold-chain report and the UNICEF oxygen concentrator case), which rest on those briefs' sources, not on this one's. Genome tags untouched. A second reader went over all of these repairs on the same day, reading the same six sources independently (Energypedia and UNEP-CCC direct; the four UNHCR, Global Compact and IRENA pages from the same Internet Archive captures): every removed figure was confirmed absent from all six, every repair stands, and seven were trimmed to the source's own strength as recorded above (refugees rather than displaced populations; a Tanzania refugee camp rather than a pilot; many rather than some families selling rations; irregular supply can deter uptake; communities hesitant rather than refusing to cook with biogas; upfront cost a barrier rather than the main one; Rwanda's alternatives arranged to meet, not before, the deadline).