The impacts of energy systems and services on sustainable development in developing countries

Enabling access to energy has been recognised as vital in addressing many of the present global development issues which affect people's economic, health and social well-being as well as the ability to meet the goal of reducing carbon emissions through clean energy use. Lack of access to energy, termed energy poverty, in the developing world has several key aspects - lack of access on demand to electricity is one aspect, but lack of access to clean cooking fuels is also a critical factor that leads to continued use of solid fuels. Yet, in spite of increased attention from multiple agencies and governments on the energy poverty issue, the strong praise for action, and the deployment of largescale energy programs and interventions, lack of access to clean cooking fuels continues to be an overlooked aspect of the energy poverty. Currently, over 2.8 billion people lack access to clean energy for cooking. However, despite this, few studies have shed light on the barriers to, the enablers of, and the impacts of inaccessibility to clean cooking alternatives on development outcomes, using rigorous methodologies. This thesis addresses this recent strand of research. The contributions of this thesis are multi-fold. Firstly, it performs and presents the results of the first quantitative analyses which examine the impacts of household use of solid fuels on the economic and social pillars of sustainable developments: in the most impoverished countries. Secondly, it provides evidences of the effects of current non-energy policies and interventions on addressing the issue. Lastly, it reviews the trends of and barriers to household accessibility to clean cooking fuels. The results obtained from the analyses vary across the countries investigated but generally speaking, it is observed that the household use of solid fuels significantly affects aspects of sustainable development such as education and life expectancy.