Inter Press Service examines how Nepal is combating the poor health effects of open-fire cooking stoves by replacing them with improved cooking stoves (ICS). According to a 2008 study commissioned by the Nepalese Environment Ministry’s Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC), indoor air pollution (IAP) was found to be “the fourth most important health risk factor after malnutrition, unsafe sex and unsafe drinking water and sanitation,” the article reports.

“In 1999, a sustained campaign was launched by AEPC to get villages to switch to ICS under its Energy Sector Assistance Program (ESAP) with financial support from the Danish government,” the news service notes. The $5.1 million project will continue through 2012, according to IPS (Sarkar, 8/9).