Inyenyeri, an organization devoted to bringing clean cookstoves to Rwanda, is working with Dalberg, a collection of impact-driven business, to improve access to clean cookstoves. With approximately 4.3 million deaths globally attributed to household air pollution caused by cooking with wood or charcoal fuels, finding an efficient way to provide clean cooking solutions is an urgent development challenge. Dalberg and Inyenyeri share a belief that a for-profit model is a promising and scalable way of addressing this issue, and their three-year partnership seeks to prove the viability of this model.

The partnership between Inyenyeri and Dalberg, which began in mid-2017 and will run until 2020, is composed of three phases:

Phase 1 (2017) sets the strategy for scaling Inyenyeri’s clean cooking solution in Rwanda via market analysis, commercialization strategy, and sourcing strategy alongside implementation planning support.

Phase 2 (2018) will focus on building an “Inyenyeri-in-a-box” to reproduce and expand the model across Sub Saharan Africa, rolling out the solution with minimum start-up costs in new markets. A sector-wide platform will be created in this phase, and potential partnerships will be evaluated and tested.

Phase 3 (2019+) will consist of the actual proliferation of the packaged solution across sub Saharan Africa through partnerships, legal entities and networks. Dalberg will help structure and facilitate the deals.

Michael Tsan (Partner, Dalberg Advisors and Co-Director of Dalberg’s Energy practice) and CJ Fonzi (Associate Partner, Dalberg Advisors and Director of Dalberg’s Rwanda office) lead this strategic relationship from Dalberg. Michael Tsan also serves on the Board of Directors of Inyenyeri. Additionally, James Mwangi (Executive Director of the Dalberg Group) and Edwin Macharia (Dalberg’s Africa Regional Director) will serve as Advisors to Inyenyeri at the executive level.

Eric Reynolds, Inyenyeri CEO said, “We could not possibly find a more savvy, experienced, and mission-aligned team than Dalberg to assist as we pioneer a new path to bring a clean, healthy, climate friendly solution to the 3 billion suffering from the long unsolvable problem of a lack of truly Clean Cooking.”

Michael Tsan, Dalberg Partner and Co-Lead of Dalberg’s Energy Practice said, “Our team is very excited by this partnership with Inyenyeri. While progress has been made in recent year in distributing moderately improved stoves, relatively little attention has been paid to promoting access to truly clean cooking fuels and stoves that are environmentally sustainable and can meaningfully mitigate the negative health effects of particulate emissions while still remaining affordable to large numbers of poor households. We believe that Inyenyeri is a promising answer to this challenge – it is among the very few cooking sector innovators globally with the potential to scale a truly clean and sustainable cooking fuel solution to both the urban and rural poor while generating positive returns for impact-orientated funders and investors.”                                                                                                 

About Inyenyeri

Inyenyeri, a Rwandan fuel-utility company, has developed an innovative model that provides even the poorest households access to a clean cooking solution. The company produces sustainable wood pellets, that, when paired ever cleaner operating gasification cookstoves, reduces wood required for cooking by 80-90% compared to traditional cooking methods. This combination allows the company to crowdsource wood from rural families, who in exchange receive the Fuel+Stove system for no cash, and sell the system to urban households at a lower cost than cooking with charcoal. This Fuel+Stove system will significantly contribute to preventing death and disease, deforestation, and climate change caused by household air pollution.

About Dalberg

Dalberg partners with and serves communities, governments, and companies throughout the world to foster inclusive and sustainable growth. The Dalberg Group is made-up of five businesses, Dalberg Advisors (strategic advisory), Dalberg Capital (impact investment), Dalberg Data Insights (big data analytics), Dalberg Design (human centered design), Dalberg Research (primary research).  Each of Dalberg’s businesses approach problems differently, but all of our businesses work together to create impact at scale. Dalberg attracts and develops the best and brightest global leaders and we practice our trades with a clear purpose and an eye on progress.