SCI offers many resources for international, national, and community solar cooking impact
Solar Cooking Economic Impact Summaries
With approximately 3 billion people cooking over open fires, there is tremendous potential for countries to save money by avoiding the environmental and health costs associated with biomass cooking. Learn what the economic impacts of solar cooking are in many countries around the world. For details on sources and calculations used to reach the figures depicted in the economic impact summaries, click below.
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Solar Cookers International Toolkit
Explore a multitude of online resources at your fingertips!
Solar cooking basics
Download SCI's classic publication How to Make, Use, and Enjoy Solar Cookers
Buy your CooKit here
The CooKit saves more than four times its value in fuel each year. With careful use and storage, a CooKit can be used for many years, and can reduce firewood consumption by one ton each year.
Program and evaluation
SCI offers many high-quality tools to help collaborators gather valid data:
Surveys:
SCI developed two surveys as part of its recommended best practices for conducting solar cooking projects. These surveys are designed for collecting consistent and impactful data and for contributing to evidence-based results for solar cooking. The goals of these surveys are to help everyone create and implement more successful solar cooking initiatives. These two surveys have questions that should be asked at three different moments in time: before the project starts; before cooks start solar cooking; and after solar cooks have been solar cooking for at least 6 months.
- Quick Needs Assessment Survey – This survey is intended for gathering data to assess community and individual needs and expressed desire for solar cooking. This survey is based on a survey by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and should be conducted before the start of a project to help identify and select communities and households for solar cooking.
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SCI Adoption and Impact Survey – This survey is intended for gathering 1) baseline data and 2) post-distribution data, to build an evidence base from solar cooking projects. This survey was created by a working group established at the 5th SCI World Conference in 2014. The group was led by SCI and included many global solar cooking experts who met regularly for more than a year to create and refine this survey. This survey has two parts and is intended for collecting before-and-after data for measuring the impact of solar cooker usage:
1. Baseline questions are to be asked at the beginning of the project before solar cookers are being used.
2. Post-distribution questions are to be asked after cooks have at least 6 months of experience solar cooking.
We offer this survey in two different formats (PDF or Google Forms) for your convenience.- PDF format: 1. Baseline Questions, and 2. Post-Distribution Questions
- Google Forms format: 1. Baseline Questions; 2. Post-Distribution Questions
Additional Notes
SCI recommends follow-up and training – as needed and in addition to conducting these surveys. This helps the new solar cooks feel more comfortable and confident solar cooking before the post-distribution questions are asked.
All required questions from these surveys should be asked/answered and the questions should be kept as they are, and not modified, aside from being translated into local languages. Maintaining consistent questions and answer format among projects helps when combining evidence-based results from several projects to calculate the global impact of solar cooking (such as here). This helps track progress and garner support for the whole solar cooking sector.
Best practice guides:
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Best practices in solar cooking project design - find more information on our Wiki page
Publications
SCI publications are a rich source of solar cooking information.
SCI has numerous resources to keep you up to date on what is happening in the solar cooking sector. Check out our blog for hot topics, and the Solar Cooking Wiki for news, events, and new content.
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SCI Newsletters
Read about the work SCI supporters made possible. Available in print and electronic versions.
SCI Strategic Plan
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Read SCI's plans for impact with the 2018 - 2021 Strategic Plan (Originally approved on 3 February 2018 and extended by board approval on 16 May 2020)