Energy Technologies for Food Utilization for Displaced People: from identification to evaluation

By end-2014, the number of forcibly displaced people in the World was 59.5 million, the highest after the II World War. UNHCR (2015) reports that they are 19.5 million refugees, 38.2 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 1.8 asylum-seekers, and they have been progressively increased in number for the last 4 years, with an estimation of 13.9 newly displaced in 2014. Such people have several needs, especially in terms of food security. Humanitarian actors usually try to address them focusing on food availability and access, while food utilization is often neglected (Haver K., Harmer A., Taylor G., 2013). The utilization of food, including the access to drinking water, is one of the four pillars of food security, and affects food properties in terms of nutritional intake, especially micronutrients, and healthiness (European Commission, 2009). Appropriate technologies for cooking, food preservation, and water purification are required, but all of them entail the access to fuel or other energy sources. Indeed, access to energy for displaced people is very important from different perspectives, but it is often problematic, and entails five key challenges: “protection, relations between hosts and displaced people, environmental problems, household energy-related natural resource restrictions and livelihood-related challenges” (Lyytinen 2009, pag. 1). The importance of energy for development was pointed out by the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) Initiative, while Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) focused the attention on crisis-affected populations, in particular refugees and IDPs (SAFE, 2015). Indeed, if people living in camps, and similarly in informal settlements, are provided with energy services, they may access to a wide range of opportunities to change their condition, and conduct a more productive and active life (Bellanca, 2014). Unfortunately, several gaps are still present in humanitarian response for providing displaced people with an adequate access to energy, and studies are few, mainly related to stoves and generally without an independent impact assessment (Gunning, 2014). Very few displaced people have access to modern forms of energy: generally their practices are unsustainable, with average household costs of at least 200 USD per year (family of five) and disproportionate CO2 emission compared to quantity and quality of energy finally utilized (Lahn & Grafham, 2015). Therefore, the gap in giving the right importance to energy access – in particular in linking relief, rehabilitation and development – is clear.