The Ghana Alliance for Clean Cookstove and Fuel (GHACCO) has held its 4th Annual General Assembly and elected Mrs Sarah Naa Dedei Agbey as its national executive board Chairperson.
The others are; Mrs Adwoa Sey, Vice Chairperson, Mrs Lily Versta Nyarko and Mr Venan Sondo, Secretary and Financial Secretary respectively.
The rest are; Mr Kenneth Nana Amoateng, an Executive Member, representing non-governmental organisations, Mr Erasmus Osei Essah, representative of producers of cookstoves and Mr Lovans Owusu-Takyi, representative of researchers and supporters of GHACCO.
The GHACCO is an association established to promote clean cookstoves and fuels.
The annual assembly was under the auspices of the Netherland Development Organisation (SNV) and Netherland Enterprise Agency (RVO) “Strategic Support to the Clean Cookstoves Sector Project.”
Mrs Agbey, in a speech said the time had come to revitalise efforts and bring all stakeholders to take action to promote clean cookstoves construction at all levels of society.
She said clean cookstoves play important roles in improving livelihoods, reducing deforestation, and indoor air pollution.
She decried the extent to which traditional cooking with solid biomass continued to affect health and economy of the country, adding that more than 80 per cent of households still relied on solid fuels, such as wood and charcoal for cooking.
Mrs Agbey said statistics indicated that over 13,400 people die each year including 3,000 children which was caused by household air pollution.
She said a recorded 70 per cent reduction in Ghana’s forest cover in the last 40 years, had partially been attributed to fuel harvesting.
“One way to reserve the trend is to encourage the development of clean and improved cookstoves such as electric cookstoves, biogas, methane, LPG, ethanol and solar,” she said.
The new Chairperson said her vision was to strengthen the capacity of producers of clean cookstoves and distribution and increase awareness for the citizenry to adopt the use of the product.
Mrs Sey called on community members and students to drive the adoption of clean cookstoves and that the executives would ensure that attention was given to all levels of society for behavioural change.
Mr Owusu-Takyi expressed gratitude to SNV, the Sustainable Energy for All Secretariat, Ministry of Energy and Energy Commission for their support of the programme.
He gave an assurance that the new executive would implement projects that would drive adoption of clean cookstoves in the country.
Mr Nicholas Manu, the out-going Chairman urged the new executive to uphold the vision and objectives of GHACCO and involve all stakeholders in ensuring coordination of activities in the clean cooking sector.
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