Enhancing LPG Adoption in Ghana (ELAG): A Trial Testing Policy-Relevant Interventions to Increase Sustained Use of Clean Fuels

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper entitled "Enhancing LPG Adoption in Ghana (ELAG): A trial testing policy-relevant interventions to increase sustained use of clean fuels" focuses on the sustained use of clean cookstoves using novel interventions and a policy-relevant randomized design and a case study of LPG adoption program in Ghana. Although quite relevant and interesting, the paper is actually a short Communication that lacks proper literature review, solid conclusions backed up by the policy implications and the research design. Here are some of my comments and suggestions for the authors:

1) The Abstract needs to be re-written to clearly show the objectives and the results of this paper. So far, it is not very clear what the authors (the number of authors, 8 people, is also problematic - why did it take 8 people to produce this short communication?) wanted to do and why this study is important (and needs to be published).

2) The paper lacks a proper Literature review on the topic. Are there any other examples from similar countries? What about similar governmental programs? The number of references is also very low (24 source) which does not allow any comparisons with similar case studies.

3) The most important question is "so what?". Does it make sense to invest into promoting LPG or not? And if not, what else can be done by the governments in question?

4) The Conclusions are very short (a way too short actually) and need to be expanded to provide clear and concise results and policy implications. I realize the authors meant this to be a short Communication, however lots of important issues are missing and need to be added.

5) Last but not least, the manuscript is prepared in a strange way, almost like it was intended for some other journal and was reformatted in the last moment.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

On page 7 you conclude that ‘stove use was low overall and the small differences indicate persistent stove stacking with traditional stoves’. This is completely in finding with numerous other studies. I suggest that you look at a broader range of literature, particularly ethnographic research. I would recommend: Puzzolo E, Stanistreet D, Pope D, Bruce N, Rehfuess E (2013) Factors influencing the largescale uptake by households of cleaner and more efficient household energy technologies. London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.

Did the participants know when you visits were due? This could influence use. Did you make any ‘random’ visits? You also state that the cohort is 'long standing', in other words they know you. How do you compensate for willingness to please (respondent biais)? Why did you only ask women? There are also male headed households without senior women. There is evidence that men may be more inclined to cook when LPG is introduced.

The evidence from other research shows that the use of cook stoves given out as part of projects decline after the end of project monitoring.

My recommendation is that in future you combine your statistical methods with qualitative methods which offer explanation for what you observe. You completely ignore gender issues. It is men who generally decide on household expenditure, even for cooking - so you should have controlled for fuel price. When you switch to LPG from fuelwood, which is usually (but not in all cultures) by women, you also alter household dynamics – men play an increasing role, for example, in collecting the LPG cylinder. In some cultures, women do not want to give up fuelwood collection entirely since this is often a time for themselves and they can be judge as ‘good wives and mothers’ by their community on the size of their wood pile.

I would also not be negative about ‘stove stacking’ or should this be ‘fuel stacking’? I do that in my kitchen.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although quite relevant and interesting, the paper is actually a short Communication that lacks proper literature review, solid conclusions backed up by the policy implications and the research design. Here are some of my comments and suggestions for the authors:

1) The Abstract still  needs to be re-written to clearly show the objectives and the results of this paper.

2) The number of authors, 8 people, is quite problematic - why did it take 8 people to produce this short communication? Where is the justification of this work?

3) The question "so what?" still remains. It is still not clear  whether it makes sense to invest into promoting LPG or not? And if not, what else can be done by the governments in question?

4) The Conclusions are still very short and still need to be expanded to provide clear and concise results and policy implications. The authors added a couple of sentences but this is clearly not enough.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The additions to the paper have gone a long way towards addressing my concerns. I would stress again the need for you to look at qualitative research for explanation of the important findings your paper presents. For example, on p 8 (lines 243/4) you cite a quantitative study:

The RLP is essentially a subsidy on stoves, but ongoing research in northern Ghana suggests that willingness to pay for stoves is actually higher than market price and willingness to pay for LPG is below market price.

Qualitative research offers explanations for the use of LPG (eg. The upfront cost is known and therefore manageable, however, using LPG is a running cost and uncertain – you cannot see how much gas you have left whereas fuelwood and kerosene you can). I would recommend a closer reading of the work by Cecelski and Matinga as well as the publications by Kojima, M., 2011. The Role of Liquefied Petroleum Gas in Reducing Energy Poverty, Washington D.C: World Bank.

One of the reasons for pushing you to engage more with qualitative work is that it will make your findings more acceptable to qualitative researchers who I also believe should engage and understand quantitative data.

I see also on p8 you have more data which looks interesting so I look forward to the next paper.

Author Response

Thank you again for your thoughtful comments. Your point is well taken that we researchers often do not read across the methodologies in which we are trained. We especially appreciate the reports you recommended and have decided to reference them as well to help tie these literatures together. The Cecelski and Mandinga report has been referenced on page 8 where we discuss future work on gender. We felt this should be included because it not only provides a solid background on why we should be considering the gendered aspects of energy transitions, but also paths forward for female involvement in energy decision-making. We also now cite the Kojima report in page 1 because it offers more context for readers why LPG is a suitable energy source for household transitions in low- and middle-income countries. Finally, we are now considering ways to include our qualitative data as part of the results from secondary/forthcoming analyses.   

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been sufficiently modified by the authors - it looks like all issues were meticulously tackled and taken care of. I can now recommend the paper for acceptance.