The Impact of Small Scale Biogas Technology on Household Income and Health in Ada'a Woreda, Oromia Region, Ethiopia (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Engineering - Civil Engineering, grade: 3.6, Addis Ababa University (Center for Development Studies), course: Environment and Sustainable Development, language: English, abstract: Access to modern energy is a key element in rural development. This thesis identified the Impact of Small Scale Biogas Technology on Household Income and Health in Ada'a Woreda, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. 9 kebeles were purposively selected where there are high number of biogas users. The descriptive statistical significances and the association of the dummy and continuous variables with the dependent variable were tested using chi-square and t-test. Propensity score matching was used to assess the impact small scale biogas technology has on health and income of household.

The study found out small scale biogas technology is favorable among users due to; subsidy form the government; relatively cheap comparing to other fuel sources; as it considers the health economic and environmental benefits; as it saves fuel; it being smokeless; its durability; the fact that it cooks quickly; as it effectively uses waste from farm and produces compost for farm use. The result from Propensity score matching indicated that small scale biogas technology has a significant and positive impact on health .

So, the impact of small scale biogas technology has an average treatment effect of 8249.2, 5968.5, 9961.5, 8652.3 ETB per annum to household income using nearest neighbor, radius, kernel and stratification methods. The impact of small scale biogas technology on health, the study looked at three outcome variables; cost of the treatment for the victims in the households; the number of days spent for fuel collection per week and; total members of the household affected by indoor air pollution (IAP). The impact of biogas on cost of treatment has an average treatment effect of 320.2, 392.5, 339.2, and 332.8 ETB using nearest neighbor, radius, kernel and stratification methods respectively.

The impact of biogas on number days spent for fuel collection has an average treatment effect of -1.5, -1.4, -1.3, and -1.3 days using nearest neighbor, radius, kernel and stratification methods respectively. Lastly the impact of using small scale biogas technology on total members of household that are affected by the illness -1.2, -1.2, -1.2, and -1.2, member using nearest neighbor, radius, kernel and stratification methods respectively. As the technology has a great potential in promoting sustainable and renewable energy, much effort should be done in promoting the technology, awareness raising to non-user household and peer education should be done.