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Despite a long history of Improved Cookstove (ICS) interventions by Non-Governmental Organizations, International Development partners and the Government of Nepal, the majority of rural Nepalese people cook on a traditional open fire for their large-scale cooking needs due to a significant lack of approved institutional-scale cooking solutions. Whilst 65.8% of rural Nepalese households cook with biomass as their primary fuel source to satisfy their personal energy needs, there is no information collected on institutional cooking use by the Government of Nepal. In this paper our main objective was to design, implement and evaluate a novel Institutional Improved Cookstove (IICS) to satisfy this gap and following its manufacturing and testing in a Government of Nepal approved test center, to identify the complex contextual factors that often override the technical capabilities of IICS. Our three-phase method combined qualitative and quantitative research approaches, as well as north-south collaborations involving a transdisciplinary research team to create an integrated systems approach taking into account the voices of all key energy stakeholders. Phase 1 included UK based co-design and testing at the University of Nottingham in 2017 to develop a novel IICS that could be used in rural Nepal. Phase 2 involved adapting the design to accommodate contextual factors highlighted by Nepalese partners and to meet testing requirements at a Government of Nepal approved testing center in late 2017. Phase 3 was conducted between December 2017 and April 2020 and focused on piloting the novel IICS in a range of locations, altitudes, socio-economic and cultural settings, monitoring sustained use and obtaining user feedback. We present our results through three case studies that highlight the highly contextualized nature of IICS adoption and sustained use, the importance of stacking, usability and cost savings, and a number of pathways to scale in an institutional setting. • Focus on institutional scale improved cookstoves. • Co-creation of cooking technology with UK and Nepali Engineers. • Present a novel Institutional scale Natural Draft Top-Lit Up-Draft (TLUD) Gasifier for use in off-grid rural settings. • 36 month long Small-Scale Study identifying complex contextual factors that act as barriers to adoption and sustained use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7, and the need to increase biomass Improved Cookstove (ICS) adoption and sustained use across the globe, this paper presents an evaluation of Practical Action Nepal's (PAN) Results Based Financing for Improved Cookstove Market Development in Nepal (RBF) project, which was conducted between January and April 2020. Nepal has a long history of International Development assistance, yet 65.8% of rural households still use firewood as their primary source of energy. With this in mind we aimed to understand the barriers, enablers and engagement strategies for the adoption and sustained use of Improved Cookstoves (ICS), map key stakeholder role perceptions and interactions, and identify areas for improvement to increase the sustained use of ICS in the focus communities. This paper uses the methodological approach from the qualitative Technology Implementation Model for Energy (TIME) for the data collection and analysis elements. Our core results show a direct need for improved communication between all key stakeholder groups, the impact of demand and supply side financial incentives in creating reputational risk for community-based key stakeholders, and how the RBF mechanism promotes initial end-user adoption but not sustained use of ICS due to a focus on immediate results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]