by Stephen Karakezi, The Foundation for Woodstove Dissemination, Nairobi.

Often referred to as one of the mod successful improved cookstove projects in Sub-Sahara Africa, the Kenya dove project developed and successfully commercialized an energy efficient metal-ceramic stove.

Over 500,000 stoves of this new improved design have been produced and disseminated in Kenya since the mid-1980es. Known as the Kenya Ceramic Jiko, KGJ in short, the improved stove is made af ceramic and metal components and is produced and marketed through the local informal sector.

One of the key characteristics of this project was its ability to utilize the existing cookstove production and system to produce and market the KCJ. Thus, the improved stove is fabricated and distributed by the same people who manufacture and sell the traditional stove design.

Another important feature of the Kenya stove project is that the KCJ design is not a radical departure of the traditional stove. The KCJ is, in essence, an incremental development from the traditional all-metal stove.

It uses materials that are locally available and can be produced locally. In addition, the KCJ is well adapted to the cooking patterns of a large majority of Kenya's urban households.

The KCJ design was not selected or identified at the onset of the stove pro gram but was arrived at through a series of iterative and dynamic ROD steps that involve a large number of individuals including existing artisanal stove producers; interested NGOs; Government

Ministries; and, research agencies.

Other important factors that contributed to the succesful commercialization of the KGJ is the conscious decision made by the project not to provide subsidies. This was instrumental in compelling the key actors In the project to utilize the existing stove production and marketing system and to convince interested private sector entrepreneurs to invest in improved stove manufacture. In their bid to recover their investment, private entrepeneurs contributed ensuring competition between producers reduced the price from a high of US $ 15.00 per stove to the current prevailing price of US $ 2.50 thus bringing the stove within the purchasing reach d a large section of Kenya's urban low-income households.

The KCJ stove design has now been successfully replicated In Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan, Malawi and Senegal. In Tanzania, It is now estimated the national stove project financed by the World Bank has disseminated over 50.000 KCJ-type stoves over the last two years. By the mid-1990es, the KCJ is expected to be the stove design of choice in the most urban centres of Sub-Saharan Africa.