Influencing Motivations Linked to the Adoption of Improved Flame-Based Cookstoves among Indigent South African Households: A Behaviour-Centred Design Approach

Abstract

The adoption of energy-efficient, clean, and safe cookstoves can improve the health of poor sub-Saharan households and reduce mortality and poverty, as identified in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite multiple interventions to increase the adoption of improved stoves and clean fuels, few interventions have borne fruit on a significant scale. The lack of adoption is shared in South Africa. (1) Background: The deleterious health hazards associated with flame-based cooking mainly affect women and children due to using portable and cheap paraffin (kerosene) cookstoves or self-constructed metal barrel wood stoves. A shift to improved cookstoves requires significant changes in users’ behaviour. Understanding and addressing the motivations for cookstove adoption and long-term use is critical for successfully implementing behavioural change campaigns. (2) Methods: A case study methodology is employed to evaluate the effectiveness of a behaviour-centred design (BCD) approach aimed at influencing cookstove-related motivations among low-income households in Dunoon, South Africa; the study gathers data via structured observations, co-creative workshops, and card-based choice questionnaires before and after a pilot intervention. (3) Results: The survey conducted before and after the abridged BCD intervention implementation in Dunoon indicates that the majority of touchpoints achieved significant success in influencing the selected cookstove-related motivations of the sampled households, further corroborated by an observed shift in household cookstove ownership patterns targeted by the intervention. (4) Conclusions: A BCD approach suggests possible methods for understanding and influencing the complex motivations determining cookstove use in a context similar to South Africa. The results suggest that linking pertinent motivations to a selected set of touchpoints as part of a cookstove-related campaign can influence cookstove-related motivations linked to the adoption of improved flame-based cookstoves in a localised South African low-income context.