The humanitarian disasters which lead to mass movements of refugees can bring huge pressure on the environment of the host country. For the past 20 years, camps in eastern Ethiopia have housed thousands of refugees who fled the conflict in Somalia, with a peak population of over 600,000 people in the early 1990s.

The UNHCR and its partner NGOs provide building materials, food, water and basic non-food items, as well as welfare and education services, in the refugee camps. What has not been provided until recently is cooking fuel. Refugee women are therefore forced to go out of the camps, several times per week, to gather firewood for cooking. Such trips can last up to eight hours: not only are they exhausting, they put women in great danger, with many reports of harassment, rape and other violence. The previously well-wooded area round Kebribeyah refugee camp is now virtually bare, as a result of the long-term pressure on wood supply from so many people.

Elsewhere in Ethiopia, unwanted molasses (a by-product of the sugar cane industry) was causing pollution through being dumped in rivers. At one sugar mill this problem had been solved by constructing a plant to convert molasses to ethanol. The Government recognised the potential for using ethanol as a clean fuel for cooking, and commissioned an 850-household pilot study of the ethanol-fuelled CleanCook stove in both refugee camps and urban households. This stove, developed in Sweden for the leisure market, uses an innovative non-pressurised canister in which ethanol is adsorbed onto mineral fibre and so does not spill.

The UNHCR was enormously impressed with the enthusiasm for the stoves among refugee women. Not only did the stoves prevent wood-collection, with its associated dangers and environmental impacts, they were also much safer, quicker and more pleasant to use, in particular avoiding the risk of respiratory and eye diseases from smoke inhalation.

The Gaia Association was formed to take the stove programme forward, initially in Kebribeyah refugee camp. Here all 1,780 families (about 17,000 people) now have ethanol stoves and a ration of one litre of ethanol per day, funded jointly by the UNHCR and the Gaia Association. The programme is expanding into the other camps which are being opened as more refugees come back to Ethiopia. The first household selection and training at Teferi Ber refugee camp was recently conducted, and stoves will soon be distributed to 800 households. In addition, stoves will shortly be used in one of the Local Government housing programmes in Addis Ababa, where people can buy new two-bedroom, one-bedroom or studio flats through a loan. The Government plans to install ethanol plants at all sugar mills, and the ethanol production would then supply over 200,000 stoves as well as other uses.

Studies have shown that a stove can replace all the 3.7 tonnes/year of largely-unsustainable fuelwood used by a household in Kebribeyah refugee camp, equivalent to about 6.2 tonnes/year of CO2 emissions. In urban areas the stoves replace a mix of wood, charcoal and kerosene, saving an average of about 3.1 tonnes/year CO2 per stove.

Minor design changes were made after the pilot study, so that the stove was more suitable for use in Ethiopia. Local production of the stoves in now starting near Addis Ababa, with an initial plan for 18,000 stoves per year, and significant potential to expand.

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