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Category: Blog
UPCHAIN Marks One Year with First Annual Seminar
UPCHAIN is marking one year today.
Prof. Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, the project PI, has challenged PHD and MA students supported by the project, as well as the project implementers, to develop “different, inclusive green charcoal innovations” in response to environmental and energy demands, especially in northern Uganda.
“We see that green charcoal can make a contribution to the fight against climate change, how we can reduce carbon dioxide, and how we can achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. What we have learned in the first year is that there is a variety of green charcoal, there is a variety of production systems, and there is a variety of cook stoves,” said Dirckinck-Holmfeld.
Prof. Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld
She was speaking during the first UPCHAIN annual seminar held May 10, 2023, at Gulu University’s new library, exactly one year since the project was launched.
Among UPCHAIN successes so far, she said, was the enrolment and commencement of studies for six PHDs, 10 MAs, and a postdoc. Other achievements include building collaboration with different partners, media coverage, conducting fieldwork, and starting a community of practice on green charcoal for Gulu City.
Prof. David Okello Owiny, the Gulu University Deputy Vice Chancellor in Charge of Academics, who officially opened the seminar, called for mindset change, even among the researchers, away from using black charcoal to using green charcoal.
Prof. David Okello Owiny
“The villages are very good at producing but they don’t use the [black] charcoal. It goes to cities that even have alternative sources of energy. There is a need for mindset change,” he said.
“Let’s do research with the community which we want to benefit from this research. We cannot keep cutting trees. Let the research we are doing transform the community,” he added.
The seminar was attended by the UPCHAIN sponsored PHD, MA students and a postdoc fellow, student supervisors, local government representatives, a representative from the Office of the Prime Minister, NGO representatives, as well as the managers and the Executive Board of UPHCHAIN.
Gulu Residents Form a Community of Practice to Promote Green Charcoal in Northern Uganda
Northern Uganda has recently turned its attention to environmental degradation, especially as a result of the widespread cutting of trees to produce charcoal. It is estimated that 40 percent of the charcoal supplied in urban Uganda is from the region. Central and local government authorities have tried bans in an attempt to reverse the trend but the demand for charcoal, as a source of energy for cooking, especially in urban areas, and a quest for income for local people, continues to drive the felling of trees.
Researchers at Gulu University, with their colleagues at Aalborg University and the University Copenhagen in Denmark, are working with local communities in northern Uganda to turn agricultural residues into charcoal which the local people can use at home and also sell. It comes in the form of briquettes. It is called green charcoal.
The researchers say that green charcoal is cleaner. It poses fewer health risks than black charcoal. They add that it can help with climate change mitigation by acting as an alternative to black charcoal (charcoal from trees). The more agricultural residues are used to produce green charcoal for energy, the more trees are spared.
Through the Unlocking the Potential of Green Charcoal Innovations to Mitigate Climate Change in Northern Uganda (UPCHAIN) project, the researchers on May 8, 2023, held a workshop with a select people mainly from Gulu City, at Takataka Plastic-Zodongo, in Gulu, to discuss the different issues surrounding black and green charcoal. The theme of the workshop was: How can citizens in Gulu City and northern Uganda be the first movers on the use and production of green charcoal? The participants included producers of agricultural residues (including millers), users of charcoal (including restaurant owners), producers of briquettes, as well as NGOs involved in the promotion of energy-saving techniques and technologies.
Participants generate ideas for promoting green charcoal during group discussions
Conducted mostly in the local language, Luo, the workshop discussed environmental degradation, laws, rules, regulations and their implementation, the quality and cost of briquettes as compared to black charcoal, as well as cultural perceptions when it comes to cooking.
Dr. Geoffrey Tabo, one of the organisers of the workshop, said the objective of the workshop was to champion the use of green charcoal in Gulu City.
“We are setting the base in changing practices from using black charcoal to using green charcoal,” Dr. Tabo said.
“We are experiencing extreme weather events – floods, landslides, fires. This project [UPCHAIN] comes at a time when the whole world is saying we have to do something – calling for climate action. We come together and discuss experiences, and then we try to find different ways by asking questions. For example, green charcoal has been with us. Why have we not been using it,” added Prof. Elizabeth Opiyo, the head of the Research Capacity Building and Organization component of UPCHAIN.
At the end of the workshop, the participants formed a group, or a community of practice, through which they will work together to promote green charcoal production and use. The group will work in collaboration with Gulu University.
“We have started this journey to save the environment. And we want to move together on this journey. The community of practice we have formed will advance charcoal innovations in Uganda,” said Dr. Collins Okello, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment (FAE), Gulu University, and Co-Principal Investigator of UPCHAIN.
We Need to Carefully Consider Gender Roles as UPCHAIN Promotes Green Charcoal Access and Adoption in Northern Uganda
I am one of the beneficiaries of the UPCHAIN project at Gulu University, having mid-2022 won a grant for my Master of Arts (MA) in History. As part of this MA, I am researching gender relations in cooking, with a focus on strategies to advance green charcoal acceptance in Northern Ugandan households through learning from people’s experiences with previous and existing cooking fuels.
UPCHAIN – Unlocking the Potential of Green Charcoal Innovations to Mitigate Climate Change in Northern Uganda – is primarily looking at the production and use of briquettes (also known as green charcoal) from agricultural waste as a cleaner and more environmentally friendly alternative to black charcoal and firewood.
In September 2022 UPCHAIN organized a field trip to Amuru District for all the grant beneficiaries and project implementers first of all for the group to meet with the different stakeholders of the project, but also for it to get a feel of the impact of the demand for cooking energy on livelihoods and the environment.
A closer look at Amuru from the onset of the trip seemed to indicate why it is a crucial area identified for the implementation of the UPCHAIN project: Heavily loaded charcoal trucks, some of them disguised as cargo vehicles, and businesses operating along the roadside, gave a clear indication of the whole charcoal business chain in the area.
A truck loaded with charcoal along the road from Amuru to Gulu. Photo: Simon Okello What is surprising, however, is that the main sellers are women. They sell charcoal either in small quantities (basins, polythene bags) or sacks. Most of them spend the entire day there, under the unpredictable weather, with their infants. This makes one wonder what role gender plays in the entire process: Are men involved only in the production process and women are left to do the selling; and who controls the proceeds from the sale of charcoal? These are some of the questions my research will have to find answers to.
Also, where the charcoal is taken, in urban and peri-urban areas, the focus on gender roles in cooking seems to be mainly on women when it comes to procurement and use of solid cooking fuels – because, typically, they are the ones who go to the market for the fuels and also do the cooking. There is, definitely, no doubt that in many households, men determine the amount of money spent on purchasing charcoal for example, but we also need to understand clearly how they influence the choice of fuel to be used for cooking and what the factors behind that are.
There are already clear observations of traditional or cultural gender roles in rural areas like Amuru when it comes to cooking and access to energy for cooking. Women and girls fetch the firewood and do the cooking. What role do men and boys play in the household when it comes to cooking, and access to energy for cooking? What about in urban areas? What do the females do and what do the males do when it comes to the kitchen? How are the different sexes affected by their gender roles in cooking and access to energy for cooking? These are questions we need to answer.
In rural areas, it is clear that most girls and women spend a lot of time looking for firewood. The setting (urban or rural) may differ but definitely, the girls on the rural side are more disadvantaged, since their households heavily rely on firewood for cooking. Besides the environmental risks that the continued use of these solid fuels poses, health risks, mainly to the users, are alarming. Similarly, the long hours spent on collecting such fuels and the encroachment on school time for the children (girls) should be of public concern.
Another debatable issue is whether men or women should be considered more when introducing and advancing the use of a new or more advanced form of cooking fuel, in this particular case green charcoal, in order for it to be adopted quickly. Green charcoal is made from available local resources such as maize cobs, coffee husks, groundnut shells, and wood residues among others. A visit to Aywek ki Mone Aoyo & Sons Millersin Pabbo Sub-County showed how these so-called ‘wastes’ are readily available.
With the establishment of one of the green charcoal production sites at Bungatira, the surrounding households seem to be embracing innovation. This is more so because, in comparison to black charcoal, green charcoal (of good quality) burns for a longer period, produces less ash, and almost no smoke while cooking.
It is inevitable to consider both men and women as the household heads who make choices for the type of energy to be used. But which of these two categories is more likely to openly and fully embrace the actual production and use of briquettes?
It is against this background that I propose a critical consideration of gender relations in cooking, and in particular, the gender roles in relation to access and choice of cooking fuel, to advance green charcoal acceptance and use in both urban and rural households in Northern Uganda.
The writer, Simon Okello, is pursuing his MA in History at Gulu University with support from UPCHAIN.
UPCHAIN Will Help Us to Address Community Sustainable Energy Needs and Provide a Safer Environment for Women and Children
May 10, 2022, was a very special day for me–firstly as an administrator, secondly as a teacher, and thirdly, as a woman in the African setting.
As more than 120 people gathered at Gulu University’s new library to witness the launch of our green charcoal (briquettes) research project, which we technically refer to as Unlocking the potential of Green Charcoal Innovations to Mitigate Climate Change in Northern Uganda (UPCHAIN), I was not only excited about us starting to implement this project, but also about the potential impact of the green charcoal concept in transforming livelihoods, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where most of the population relies on biomass energy for cooking.
That morning, I sat quietly and thoughtfully in my chair as I waited for the opening session to begin. It was during that time that I recalled a headline on the website of the Danish Development Research Network (DDRN) about our initial steps toward research in green charcoal development. The headline read thus: Green Charcoal: Could Research at Gulu University Ignite a Biomass Energy Revolution in Uganda? That story was published in May 2021 at the time when we applied for a grant to take this research to another level. That article clearly brought out the issues behind our research: the need for energy, the need for cleaner energy, the need to address Climate Change, the need to create jobs, and the gender aspects of energy.
As an administrator, I was really happy that BSU had birthed this grand, interdisciplinary research project at Gulu University. To look around the room and see all these researchers from the Faculty of Education and Humanities, Faculty of Business and Development Studies, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Science, Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, Institute of Research and Graduate Studies, as well as researchers from Aalborg University in Denmark, who had participated in developing the project proposal, was really fascinating.
I recalled the very early days when we were starting to conceptualize the green charcoal research idea. Professor Michael Whyte of the University of Copenhagen (who did not attend the launch ceremony) was so passionate about what green charcoal could offer.
When he and others returned to Gulu from a study tour in Soroti in November 2019, where they had seen the good work of the Teso Women Development Initiative with their briquettes project, Whyte was so swift in proposing further research to be undertaken on how green charcoal briquettes could be made to mitigate charcoal burning in northern Uganda. This was at the time when the then Chairman of Gulu District Local Government, Ojara Mapenduzi, had staged a spirited fight against tree cutting and charcoal burning in Gulu District.
I have been coordinating at BSU for the last six years and I am proud to say that at UGX6bn, this is the largest research project directly coming out of our work here at BSU. Of course, I don’t underestimate the enormous contribution of BSU since 2011 in building the capacity of Gulu University both in terms of human resource development and infrastructure development, especially for research. BSU has among other achievements built Gulu University’s capacity to apply for highly competitive external grants such as UPCHAIN.
As a teacher and a researcher, I see a lot of potential in both the sciences and humanities disciplines for research, teaching, and learning, directly and indirectly, coming out of the UPCHAIN project.
To start with, the six PhDs, 12 MAs and one postdoc which are funded by the project will enable us to understand different aspects of green charcoal. Climate Change and Green charcoal are both social and environmental issues and need a new approach to understanding them.
The multi-disciplinary approach in the project, for example, creates the puzzle of how History can be used to address Climate Change. This project demystifies the fallacy of the irrelevance of history as a discipline in transforming lives. The different researches will bring out unique ideas around green charcoal and each of those ideas will certainly raise other areas for research, teaching, and learning. As another major important benefit, the PhDs and Masters provide the lecturers an opportunity for graduate supervision capacity building.
Secondly, because energy and climate changes are key social issues, which are well articulated in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Seven and 13 respectively – although this project directly addresses most of the 17 goals – the active participation of the communities in the green charcoal research project offers a good opportunity for knowledge to be turned into practice almost immediately.
This learning by doing should make it easier for the communities to adopt green charcoal as they will have seen its benefits in comparison to other crude energy sources such as firewood and black charcoal. The UPCHAIN project provides a new strategy in the use of a bottom-up approach in mitigating climate change from the household level where wood fuel is commonly used as cooking fuel. Providing alternative cooking fuel would help mitigate the destruction of trees and climate change.
And finally, as a woman in the African setting, I recognize the fact that gender imbalance is still strong here. In most African societies the kitchen is a woman’s area and while there, her young children are her regular companions. When it comes to health issues, women and children are the main victims of using unclean fuels such as firewood and black charcoal.
They take the biggest chunk of the nearly four million people worldwide who die each year because of using unclean fuels. Besides that, the responsibility of finding energy for cooking, in most cases firewood, falls squarely on women and girls. They sometimes have to walk very long distances to find it and along the way they are exposed to other risks such as sexual violence.
The difficulty of accessing wood fuel has often resulted in domestic violence as the woman is unable to prepare food on time. A woman with a disability is more affected by the use of wood cooking fuel. Green charcoal would be the solution for women with disabilities. It will improve the quality of life in the kitchen and cooking and the household.
Once we are able to deliver green charcoal to the kitchen, we are solving the problem of the woman and the child having to walk long distances in search of energy for cooking, we are preventing health and safety issues that come with searching for and using dirty fuels for cooking, and we are ensuring that girls are staying in schools and women can use their time more efficiently such as increasing their time participation in income generating activities.
We are grateful to DANIDA for again coming in to support our research activities by generously funding the UPCHAIN project.
This story was first published on June 30, 2022, on the BSU website. It was republished by The Sunrise and DFC under different headlines
UPCHAIN impresses at Northern Uganda Agricultural Show
UPCHAIN participated in the Northern Uganda Agricultural show held between July 28 and June 3, 2022, at Pece Stadium in Gulu.
The theme of the show was: “Unlocking Agriculture Innovation, Technology and Agribusiness for Livelihood Reconstruction.”
The show offered an opportunity for UPCHAIN to showcase its innovations in Green Charcoal and disseminate information about the project to the public.
The items exhibited included Green charcoal production line equipment comprising the carbonizer, grinder, mixer, and extruder, a sample of green charcoal products (briquettes), and information packages about the UPCHAIN project including banners, brochures, and business cards.
A total of 210 visitors were registered in the Visitor Book. The number of unregistered visitors, however, was much bigger. Some of the notable visitors included Charles Ichongor (RDC Gulu District), Hon. Opiyo Christopher Ateker (LC V, Gulu District) Jane Frances Amongin Okili (RCC Gulu City), and Prof. William Kisaalita (University of Georgia, USA).
Most visitors described the exhibition by UPCHAIN as impressive, interesting, good, innovative, and commendable for environmental conservation. Others showed interest in the business part of the project and expressed the will to learn more from the project to enhance their knowledge and business in green charcoal.
Exif_JPEG_420 UPCHAIN awards grants for 6PhDs, 12MAs, and a postdoc
We are pleased to announce the winners of UPCHAIN grants for studies in different areas related to green charcoal. A total of 6 PhDs, 12Mas, and a postdoc were confirmed by a selection committee comprising lecturers of Gulu University, Aalborg University, and the University of Copenhagen.
The Beneficiary of the postdoc is Dr. Geoffrey Tabo of the Faculty of Science. Ph.D. beneficiaries include Fredrick Amanyire (Faculty of Agriculture and Environment), Alex Ssebaana (Faculty of Education and Humanities), Judith Awacorach (Faculty of Business and Development Studies), Damasco Okettayot (Faculty of Education and Humanities), Hilda Acan (Faculty of Agriculture and Environment) and Kevin Aber (Faculty of Science).