U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Official Visits Ethiopia: Focus on Cookstove Opportunities
Addis Ababa, November 18 – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, Dr. Paul Anastas, is visiting Ethiopia from November 16-18 to deliver a keynote address at the 1st Pan-African Chemistry Network (PACN) Green Chemistry Congress and meet with Ethiopian officials and representatives to discuss the indoor household cooking situation in Ethiopia.
In meetings with the Ministry of Water and Energy, the Gaia Association, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and GtZ, Dr. Anastas will discuss the future of cleaner household cooking alternatives and the commercialization potential of cleaner cookstoves in Ethiopia and other parts in the developing world. Dr. Anastas will conduct field visits to sites of ongoing cookstove projects and tour households in low-income Ethiopian communities that have adopted cleaner cookstove use as well as those that use traditional technologies.
During his time in Ethiopia, Dr. Anastas will highlight the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, announced by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on September 21, 2010 in New York. The Alliance is a public-private partnership led by the United Nations Foundation that aims to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. Five federal U.S. agencies — the U.S. Departments of State, Health and Human Services, and Energy as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development – have launched an unprecedented government effort to mobilize U.S. expertise, financial resources, and research and development tools to help the Alliance achieve an ambitious target: clean and efficient stoves and fuels in 100 million homes by 2020. In the longer term, the Alliance and its partners are working toward universal adoption of clean cooking solutions.
“As a founding partner of the Alliance, the U.S. wants to address some of the leading risk factors associated with traditional cookstoves and open fires,” Dr. Anastas explained Tuesday while visiting a Good Shepherd Sisters community, an impoverished women’s community in Addis Ababa. “Our objective,’ he continued, “is to help develop, implement and support appropriate technologies that not only improve human health and the environment, but also catalyze economic growth.”
Dr. Anastas is known widely as the “Father of Green Chemistry” for his groundbreaking research on the design, manufacture, and use of minimally-toxic, environmentally-friendly chemicals. He has an extensive record of leadership in government, academia, and the private sector and will share his experience and insights at both the PACN Congress and during his visits with Ethiopian officials and communities.
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