The study sets out to do further analysis of the 2014 DHS data to build a predictive model of factors associated with uptake of clean fuels for cooking in Ghanaian households.
The findings reveal that less than a third of Ghanaian households were using clean fuels for cooking. A decade ago, the proportion of households that had access to LPG was estimated to be 18% [15]. Our result show that Ghana’s progress regarding access to clean cooking fuels has been slow (26.9%). Since the early 1990, the government of Ghana has implemented Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) program to encourage households to use (LPG) for cooking as a better alternative to the commonly used traditional biomass fuels [16]. The program has mainly undertaken safety awareness campaign, local production of cylinder and its accessories and increase LPG accessibility to the population by distributing free LPG gas cylinders [16]. The LPG cylinder distribution was further intensified in 2013. The objective of these programs is to ensure 50% of Ghanaian households depend on LPG for their cooking energy needs by 2015 [17], 2020 (revised timeline) [15], and 2030 (new timeline) [18]. The revision of the timelines was due to the failure of government to meet its target. Given the current estimate and the slow adoption rate for clean cooking solutions, it will be prudent for the government of Ghana to review and evaluate the LPG promotion programs.
The households’ use of clean cooking fuels were also found to be positively associated with certain household head demographic factors, household characteristics, place and region of residence. To begin with, male-headed households were more likely to use clean fuels for cooking compared to female-headed households. Men have more economic advantage in most Ghanaian communities. This advantage positions men to purchase clean fuels that are generally considered expensive in Ghana. Even though some studies present similar results, others present contrary findings. For example, one study conducted in South Asia found that female-headed households were more likely to use clean cooking fuels [19, 20]. The authors mentioned the ability of clean cooking fuels to reduce the drudgery associated with cooking as a major influential factor for its adoption, hence the use by female-head households.
Again, households headed by persons between 24 years and 44 years were observed to have a higher odd of using clean cooking fuels. Conventionally, persons within this age group belong to the active working-age population, granting them easier access to economic opportunities. Therefore, these individuals are more likely to afford the usage of clean cooking fuels. Additionally, persons above 55 years may find it difficult and inconvenient to adopt clean fuels for cooking because they perhaps belong to a generation that predominantly relied on solid fuels for cooking [21]. Other scholars also explain that the tendency to experiment and to adopt efficient modern technologies and behaviour may be a contributing factor for the adoptions and use of clean cooking fuels among the younger generation [22].
Furthermore, we found that households with currently married or never-married individuals were more likely to use clean cooking fuels. In today’s Ghana, it is trendy for couples to rely on LPG and electricity for cooking. Also, anecdotal evidence suggests that couples may be more likely to use clean cooking fuels because of its convenience. Even though undocumented in the literature, it is prudent to argue that households with never-married heads were more likely to use clean cooking fuels due to its convenience and the high tendency of reducing exertion often associated with traditional cooking methods.
Moreover, we found education, one of the most frequently studied variables as another key contributing factor influencing adoption and use of clean cooking fuels among households. This is because the educated household head is more informed on the environmental and health benefits of cleaner cooking fuels which influence its adoption and use. One scholar in a similar study opined that educated household heads in urban communities are more inclined to use clean fuels [6]. In addition, it is instructive to reason that educated household heads may have more access to economically viable opportunities than their uneducated counterparts. This economic advantage provides educated households with high-income levels to purchase clean fuels which are relatively expensive but convenient to use.
Besides, the study revealed that household’s with less than eight members have a higher likelihood of using clean cooking fuels. We attribute this phenomenon to the reduction in the financial burden in smaller households than larger households. Large households in Ghana are most often dominated by dependent individuals. The high demand for cooking energy uses due to the family size and the challenge of limited resources create the situation of treating the adoption and use of clean cooking fuels which are most often expensive as a periphery or less of a household need due to prevailing household welfare status. Other studies confirms this finding [23-25].
We also found that households with at least two women had a higher likelihood of using clean fuels. In Ghana, cooking activities are mostly a preserve of adult female household members. This exposes them, (especially women without clean cooking methods) to chronic obstructive cardio-pulmonary diseases (COPD) such as bronchitis, lung cancer, asthma etc than their counterparts who adopt and use clean fuels. We argue that in an attempt to avert the physical drain and negative health implications associated with the burning of solid biomass for cooking, households with 2 or more adult females are more likely to combine financial resources to adopt clean fuels which is more convenient, timesaving and healthy. Findings from a study conducted by some authors concur with this observation [25].
Furthermore, rich households were more likely to use clean fuels compared to poor households. The adoption and use of cooking fuels like other graded commodities are highly influenced by the purchasing power of the household. The finding agrees with the Energy Ladder Theory that explains the direct relationship between rise in household income and the adoption of clean cooking energy sources [26]. The mean annual non-food and housing expenditure for households in Ghana is GHC 4,682 [27]. Averagely, 14.5kg of LPG which is about GHC 80/USD 13.8 (GHC 960/USD 166 annually), representing about 21% of annual non-food-and-housing expenditure should suffice to meet a household’s cooking and heating need. The average annual gross income for poor households is GHC 18,191, which is 2.5 times lower than that of the rich households (GHC 44, 933) [27]. This means, allocating one-fifth of non-food-and-housing expenditure to clean cooking fuel will be much easier for the rich households than the poor. Again, apart from the ability to purchase clean fuels, the luxury and prestige attached with the adoption and use of clean fuels could explain why rich households associate with it [24].
We investigated whether regional variations influenced the likelihood of a Ghanaian household to use climate-friendly and health-promoting fuels for cooking. The study observed that households within some political administrations in Ghana had a higher probability of using improved cooking methods than others. For example, we observed that households in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Western and Eastern regions were more likely to use clean fuels than traditional biomass. Possible explanation for this observation can be attributed to the urbanized nature of these regions. Greater Accra region, for example, is the political head and administrative region of Ghana. It is the most urbanized region with about 87.4% of its population living in urban centres with access to viable economic and political resources for an improved standard of living [28]. This implies that households within these regions are more likely to utilize the available economic and political advantage to adopt or adapt climate-friendly and health-promoting fuels for cooking than their counterparts in the other rural regions of the country. Moreover, there is easy access to clean cooking fuels in the urban regions than the rural regions [29]. Illustratively, compared with the Northern region which has only 12 LPG gas refilling stations, Greater Accra (179 outlets), Ashanti (95 outlets), Brong Ahafo (70 outlets), Central (76 outlets), Western (66 outlets) and Eastern (66 outlets) regions have more refiling outlets making it easier for households in these regions to have access to LPG for their household needs [30]. These finding shares some similarities with findings of one other study [31].
Of particular interest in the above finding was the higher probability of households in the Upper East region to use climate and health-promoting fuels for cooking. This is quite revealing because households in the Northern regions of Ghana are the poorest across the country. However, the likelihood of households in the Upper East regions identified in this study to use clean cooking fuels suggests some qualitative explanations. In 2013, Ghana launched The Rural LPG Promotion Program (RLP) in the Upper East Region with the aim to create access to households in rural areas to use LPG for cooking [30]. The RLP involved the distribution of free gas cylinders to households [30]. It is therefore prudent to argue that many households in the region had a higher chance to benefit from the free cylinders compared with the Northern region.
The study has certain strength and limitations that are worth mentioning. It employed the cross-sectional analysis which did not permit the researchers to derive causal relationships between covariates and the outcome variable. It is also worth mentioning that few households were excluded from the analysis because they did not cook at home and therefore did not use any domestic cooking energy. Close to four decades, the GDHS program has been conducting its survey every five years, and this has improved the quality of the sampling methodologies, data collection procedures, and the development of the questionnaires. Given that the study used the GDHS dataset that is nationally representative and large, the estimates from the analyses can be generalized for the entire Ghanaian population.