The investment requirements to achieve the United Nations’ universal electricity access goal by 2030 are estimated at 640 billion USD. The assumption underlying this goal is that electrification contributes to poverty alleviation in many regards. In recent years, a body of literature has emerged that widely confirms this positive poverty impact assumption. Most of these studies, however, are based on data from Asia and Latin America. This paper challenges the transferability of impact findings in the literature to the African context.

More than 3 billion people use wood fuels for their daily cooking needs, with detrimental health implications related to smoke emissions. Best practice global initiatives emphasize the dissemination of clean cooking stoves, but these are often expensive and suffer from interrupted supply chains that do not reach rural areas. This emphasis neglects that many households in the developing world cook outdoors. Our calculations suggest that for such households, the use of less expensive biomass cooking stoves can substantially reduce smoke exposure.