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The role of social relations in the adoption of improved cookstoves

This working paper presents findings and insights from a study of stove users in Kenya, providing insights on successful marketing strategies, in particular how behaviour change techniques and good after-sales relationships can help stove implementers to exploit social multiplier effects. Improved cookstoves promise benefits for human health, deforestation, climate change mitigation and gender equality. For decades, various governmental and non-governmental initiatives have tried to convince households in the developing world to change their behaviour and adopt the new technology. But they have had very limited success.