Africa Biogas Partnership Programme
The Africa Biogas Partnership Programme (ABPP) comprises a partnership between Hivos and SNV in supporting national programmes on domestic biogas in six African countries. The Programme aims at constructing 70,000 biogas plants in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Senegal and Burkina Faso providing about half a million people access to a sustainable source of energy by the year 2013.
The overall objective of the ABPP is to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals through the dissemination of domestic biogas plants as a local, sustainable energy source through the development of a commercially viable, market-oriented biogas sector.
The Programme is financially supported by the Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and SNV. The financial contribution of DGIS amounts to €30 million, covering approximately one third of the total programme costs. These funds are channelled through Hivos, which carries out the role of fund and programme manager, operating from an office in Nairobi. SNV will provide capacity building services in the six countries and take responsibility for knowledge management at supra-national level. Use will be made of knowledge generated by SNV through the setting-up of large-scale domestic biogas programmes in Asia.
Achieving the goal of constructing 70,000 biogas plants by setting-up market-oriented programmes will tremendously improve living conditions of African households. Particularly women and children will improve their health condition as cooking on biogas is smokeless. There will be more time for them available for other activities as no fuel wood needs to be collected anymore. Applying bio-slurry will improve soil fertility and boost agricultural production. Greenhouse gas emission will reduce and employment opportunities will increase through the new established domestic biogas business sector.
The ABPP is part of a broader objective of DGIS targeting the provision of sustainable energy to 10 million people by the year 2015.
Jean Marc Sika, Fund Manager of the African Biogas Partnership Programme writes a blog about ABPP.
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