Understanding the Access to Fuels and Technologies for Cooking in Peru

Abstract

There is global concern regarding access to energy, especially in developing countries, as set forth in the Sustainable Development Goals. Although Peru is classified as an emerging economy and would be expected to have achieved full energy coverage, the status of the access to fuels in Peru is unknown. The objective of this study was to comprehensively document the instruments and the progress made on the issue of access to modern fuels and technologies for cooking in Peru to explain the current situation and to highlight the main challenges that the country must face to achieve total access to modern energy sources. A comprehensive literature review was carried out for this work, covering a wide range of publications from 1983 to 2019. A total of 18 political and economic instruments and 95 voluntary instruments were analyzed. It made it possible to build a historical series of the main events leading to access to modern cooking fuels in Peru and to identify eight key challenges. The results show that the country has made remarkable progress in recent years, but this progress is not enough to close the access gap. Therefore, seems advisable to act on the current policy framework, formulate more inclusive policies, promote unified institutional efforts and generate technological options that respond to territory and population as diverse as Peru.