Sustainable Energy Transition in Refugee Camps: The Case of Uganda and Kenya

我提议的研究项目旨在增加我们对强迫流离失所环境中可持续能源过渡障碍的了解，制定一个框架来指导能源行为者和研究人员确定和解决这些障碍，并增进我们对人道主义能源背景下有争议的可持续性概念的理解。由于全球南部难民家庭不可持续的能源做法，碳排放、健康危害和基于性别的暴力等问题表明，人道主义行为者和东道国政府需要做出深思熟虑的努力，支持难民营的清洁能源过渡。现有的能源干预措施往往由非政府组织(NGO)牵头，重点是增加家庭获得改进的炉灶和用于照明和商业的微型太阳能电池板的机会，这些措施的使用量往往很低且寿命很短。这使得绝大多数难民家庭无法获得这些技术，导致能源长期匮乏，这进一步加剧了被迫流离失所家庭的脆弱性。要解决能源匮乏的局面，有必要了解存在哪些障碍，在哪里，以及我们如何克服这些障碍。这样，人道主义机构和东道国政府将更有效地为难民和东道国社区制定能源方案。为了实现研究目标，我提议收集乌干达和肯尼亚的主要数据，特别侧重于能源行为者生产和分发改进的生物质炉灶并供难民使用的市场体系。我会把市场体系分成三个层次：市场、家庭和社区。这三个级别中的每个级别都由一组关键的利益相关者代表。在市场层面，我将规划实施能源项目的组织，并与能源参与者和政府官员进行访谈。在家庭层面，我将与选定的户主互动，了解他们在获得清洁能源产品和服务方面面临的障碍，特别关注他们如何评价清洁炉灶，以及炉灶的哪些特性对他们最重要。最后，在社区层面，我将进行焦点小组讨论，探讨社区成员现有的社交互动如何影响采用或不采用改进的炉灶。

My proposed research project aims at increasing our understanding of the barriers to sustainable energy transition in forced displacement settings, developing a framework to guide energy actors and researchers to identify and address these barriers, and increasing our understanding of the contested concept of sustainability in the context of humanitarian energy. Problems like carbon emissions, health hazards, and gender-based violence due to unsustainable energy practices by refugee households in the global south point to the need for humanitarian actors and host governments to make deliberate efforts to support clean energy transition in refugee camps. The existing energy interventions are often led by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) focusing on increasing household access to improved cookstoves and mini solar panels for lighting and for business, often with low and short-lived uptake. This has left the vast majority of refugee households with no access to these technologies, leading to a protracted energy poverty situation, which further exacerbates the vulnerability of forcibly displaced households. To address this energy poverty situation, it is necessary to know what barriers exist, where, and how we can overcome them. This way,humanitarian agencies and host governments will more effectively develop energy programmes for refugees and host communities. To achieve the research objectives, I propose to collect primary data in Uganda and Kenya, focusing specifically on the market systems within which improved biomass cookstoves are produced and distributed by energy actors, and used by refugees. I will split the market systems into three levels: the market, the household, and the community. Each of these three levels is represented by a set of key stakeholders. At the market level, I will map out organisations implementing energy projects and conduct interviews with energy actors and government officials. At the household level, I will interact with selected household heads to understand the barriers they face to access clean energy products and services with a particular focus on how they value clean cookstoves and what attributes of the cookstoves are most important to them. Lastly, at the community level, I will conduct focus group discussions to explore how community members' existing social interactions influence adoption or non-adoption of the improved cookstoves.