Performance of Charcoal Cookstoves for Haiti, Part 2: Results from the Controlled Cooking Test

Five charcoal cookstoves were tested using a Controlled Cooking Test (CCT) developed from cooking practices in Haiti. Cookstoves were tested for total burn time, specific fuel consumption, and emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}), and the ratio of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide (CO/CO{sub 2}). These results are presented in this report along with LBNL testers’ observations regarding the usability of the stoves

Innovation and access to technologies for sustainable development: diagnosing weaknesses and identifying interventions in the Transnational Arena

Sustainable development – improving human well-being across present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – is a central challenge for the 21st century. Technological innovation can play an important role in moving society toward sustainable development. However, poor, marginalized, and future populations often do not fully benefit from innovation due to their lack of market or political power to influence innovation processes. As a result, current innovation systems fail to contribute as much as they might to meeting sustainable development goals. This paper focuses on how actors and institutions operating in the transnational arena can mitigate such shortfalls. To identify the most important transnational functions required to meet sustainable development needs our analysis undertook three main steps. First, we developed a framework to diagnose blockages in the global innovation system for particular technologies. This framework was built on existing theory and new empirical analysis. On the theory side, we drew from the literatures of systems dynamics; technology and sectoral innovation systems, science and technology studies, the economics of innovation, and global governance. On the empirical front, we conducted eighteen detailed case studies of technology innovation in multiple sectors relevant to sustainable development: water, energy, health, food, and manufactured goods. We use the framework to analyze our case studies in the common language of (1) technology stocks, (2) non-linear flows between stocks substantiated by specific mechanisms, and (3) characteristics of actors and socio-technical conditions (STCs) which mediate the flows between stocks . We identify blockages in the innovation system for each of the cases, diagnosing where in the innovation system flows were hindered and which specific sets of STCs and actor characteristics were associated with these blockages. Figure E.1 displays the components of our framework and how they relate

Effects of Market Approaches to Green Technologies for the Poor: The Case of Improved Cookstoves

"Sustainable" or "green" technologies for the global poor have been proposed as solutions to the difficult problem of how to improve the lives of the world's poorest without contributing to climate change or other environmental catastrophes. While such technologies were once the domain of non-profit and government funded initiatives, theyare now increasingly developed and deployed through market mechanisms. Using improved biomass cookstoves as a representative technology, this dissertation seeks to assess the social and technological effects of this shift to market-based approaches for development and dissemination of sustainable technologies for the poor.Chapter 2 uses a Science and Technology Studies theoretical framework to follow the coproduction of the material form of improved biomass cookstoves and the cookstove movement from the 1960s to the present. The chapter shows that during the 1980s, particular conceptions and articulations of the problem that cookstoves were meant to solve led to a definition of technological "improvement" that included fuel efficiency, consistency of performance, and ability to scale quickly. This particular type of cookstove was much more compatible with mass-production than traditional artisanal production, creating social organizations that could mass-produce cookstoves, which then encouraged commercial approaches in order to recover costs. The move to a market-based approach was in part driven by and in part the cause of a particular kind of technology, demonstrating the mutual coproduction of the social and technological.Chapter 3 takes one market-based tool, intellectual property, and analyses the effect of deploying it in the realm of green technologies for the poor. Using the contrasting cases of UV Waterworks and the Berkeley-Darfur Stove the chapter identifies some of the salient social and technical characteristics that determine whether such effect is positive. The complex social arrangements involved in developing technologies for the poor mean that tools such as intellectual property can be useful but must be compatible with the organizations involved at the level at which the tool is targeted, each of which may have different orientations and incentives. The type of funding at each level, donor versus investor, appears to be a particularly important variable in predicting positive or negative outcomes.Chapter 4 examines one specific environmental policy market mechanism, the carbon market, and its role in stimulating technological change, invention, innovation, and dissemination (Schumpeter, 1942) in biomass cookstoves. It shows that carbon credits are thus far improving diffusion of current cookstoves but failing to stimulate innovation in cookstoves with stronger health and environmental impacts. Additionally, the chapter shows that the carbon market is influencing the selection of cookstoves for dissemination. The characteristics selected for are most compatible with centralized, mass production, which is likely to strengthen the shift towards these approaches

Effects of Market Approaches to Green Technologies for the Poor: The Case of Improved Cookstoves

"Sustainable" or "green" technologies for the global poor have been proposed as solutions to the difficult problem of how to improve the lives of the world's poorest without contributing to climate change or other environmental catastrophes. While such technologies were once the domain of non-profit and government funded initiatives, theyare now increasingly developed and deployed through market mechanisms. Using improved biomass cookstoves as a representative technology, this dissertation seeks to assess the social and technological effects of this shift to market-based approaches for development and dissemination of sustainable technologies for the poor.Chapter 2 uses a Science and Technology Studies theoretical framework to follow the coproduction of the material form of improved biomass cookstoves and the cookstove movement from the 1960s to the present. The chapter shows that during the 1980s, particular conceptions and articulations of the problem that cookstoves were meant to solve led to a definition of technological "improvement" that included fuel efficiency, consistency of performance, and ability to scale quickly. This particular type of cookstove was much more compatible with mass-production than traditional artisanal production, creating social organizations that could mass-produce cookstoves, which then encouraged commercial approaches in order to recover costs. The move to a market-based approach was in part driven by and in part the cause of a particular kind of technology, demonstrating the mutual coproduction of the social and technological.Chapter 3 takes one market-based tool, intellectual property, and analyses the effect of deploying it in the realm of green technologies for the poor. Using the contrasting cases of UV Waterworks and the Berkeley-Darfur Stove the chapter identifies some of the salient social and technical characteristics that determine whether such effect is positive. The complex social arrangements involved in developing technologies for the poor mean that tools such as intellectual property can be useful but must be compatible with the organizations involved at the level at which the tool is targeted, each of which may have different orientations and incentives. The type of funding at each level, donor versus investor, appears to be a particularly important variable in predicting positive or negative outcomes.Chapter 4 examines one specific environmental policy market mechanism, the carbon market, and its role in stimulating technological change, invention, innovation, and dissemination (Schumpeter, 1942) in biomass cookstoves. It shows that carbon credits are thus far improving diffusion of current cookstoves but failing to stimulate innovation in cookstoves with stronger health and environmental impacts. Additionally, the chapter shows that the carbon market is influencing the selection of cookstoves for dissemination. The characteristics selected for are most compatible with centralized, mass production, which is likely to strengthen the shift towards these approaches

Génomique végétale : partenariats public-privé visant à assurer la sécurité alimentaire mondiale

Version anglaise dans la bibliothèque: Public-private partnerships in plant genomics for global food securityLes avancées de la science génomique ont révolutionné la manière dont nous nous intéressons à l'amélioration des cultures. Ces changements ont des conséquences majeures dans le secteur commercial, mais aussi pour les cultures importantes à la sécurité alimentaire et pour les petits exploitants agricoles disposant de peu de ressources. Les organismes des secteurs privé et public non seulement adaptent leur processus de recherche et développement, mais ils s’adaptent à une nouvelle ère de partenariats public-privé. Cette orientation vers plus de partenariats public-privé s’explique par les tendances principales qui influencent l’amélioration des cultures, mentionnons : la mise au point de technologies révolutionnaires, une hausse marquée des investissements privés en recherche et développement, la complexité croissante de la gestion des droits de propriété intellectuelle, et des décennies de sous-investissement dans la capacité du secteur privé. Nous fournissons un aperçu du contexte actuel des partenariats public-privé dans le domaine des sciences génomiques, consignons les progrès en matière de séquençage génomique des cultures vivrières et fourragères dans les pays en voie de développement, et examinons les défis particuliers, les mesures incitatives, les pratiques exemplaires et les leçons apprises. Pour que la révolution génomique contribue son plein potentiel au profit des petits exploitants agricoles dans les pays en voie de développement, le programme de recherche en génomique doit commencer à mettre l’accent autant sur l’utilisation de nouveaux gènes, marqueurs moléculaires et l’amélioration des modèles de sélection prédictifs que sur la production de données de séquençage. Les partenariats public-privé peuvent réaliser les aptitudes et le savoir-faire qui permettront d’accélérer le développement de nouvelles variétés afin de répondre aux besoins en production agricole et en nutrition et ainsi améliorer la situation actuelle en matière de sécurité alimentaire. Il reste à voir si les incitatifs pour les secteurs privé et public à formuler de nouveaux partenariats dans le but d’atteindre cet objectif suffiront à surmonter les difficultés inhérentes

Public-private partnerships in plant genomics for global food security

Library has French version: Génomique végétale : partenariats public-privé visant à assurer la sécurité alimentaire mondialeAdvances in genomic science have ushered in a revolution in the way we approach the science of crop im-provement. These changes have major implications in the commercial sector, but also for crops important to food security and for resource-poor smallholder farmers. Both private- and public-sector organizations are not only adapt-ing their research and development (R & D), they are adapting to a new era of public-private partnerships (PPPs). The shift toward more PPPs is driven by major trends im-pacting crop improvement including: game-changing new technologies, a surge in private investment in R & D, in-creasingly complex intellectual property rights (IPRs), and decades of under-investment in public sector capacity. We provide a snapshot of the current landscape of PPPs in genomics, document progress with crop genome sequenc-ing for staple food and feed crops in developing countries; and consider specific challenges, incentives, best practices and lessons learned. For the genomics revolution to con-tribute its full potential to benefit smallholder farmers in developing countries, the genomics research agenda needs to transition its emphasis from generation of sequence data to also supporting utilization of novel genes, molecular markers and improving predictive breeding models. PPPs can realize the skills and know-how to accelerate the de-velopment of new varieties to meet agricultural productivi-ty and food nutrition challenges that can change the food security landscape. However, it remains to be seen if the incentives for the public and private sectors to partner together to achieve this goal are sufficient to overcome the inherent difficulties