Accurate data on household energy use, combined with other data on household well-being (including consumption, income, health, and education), is essential to monitor progress in the household energy transition from traditional biomass fuels to modern fuels and electricity and to evaluate the effect of government energy policies on living conditions. Multi-topic socioeconomic household surveys, such as the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), can provide data with which to make these measurements. Designers of LSMS and other multi-topic household surveys can use these...

As cities in developing countries grow and become more prosperous, energy use shifts from fuelwood to fuels like charcoal, kerosene and coal, and, ultimately, to fuels such as liquid petroleum gas, and electricity. Energy use is not usually considered a socio-economic issue. Yet, as this book demonstrates, the movement away from traditional fuels has a strong social class dimension, as poor people are the last to attain the benefits of using modern energy. The result is that health risks from the continued use of wood fuel fall most heavily on the poor, and indoor pollution from wood stoves...

Douglas F. Barnes and his team of development experts provide an essential guide that can help improve the quality of life of the estimated 1.3 billion rural people in the world who are without electricity.

Rural energy's importance to the Bangladesh economy cannot be underestimated, The problems rural people face in obtaining safe, clean, and reliable energy supplies are not minor inconveniences. People are cooking with biomass fuels including large amounts of leaves and grass that expose them harmful indoor air pollution. They light with kerosene or sometimes candles which give off a dim light that hampers studying and reading in the evening. Finally, rural productivity suffers because of lack of access to modern energy. However, the picture also is not all bleak. This study underscores how...