Household cooking fuel use in rural and peri-urban Viet Nam: A multilevel longitudinal analysis of supply side factors

We examined the role of supply and demand side factors in the choice of household cooking fuel using a multilevel modeling approach that included the effects of spatial autocorrelation. The use of wood was found to be significantly associated with all forest types - whether they were natural or plantations; whether they were owned by households or other entities. Land under perennial crops was also positively associated with wood use. In peri-urban communes wood usage decreased over the years. In rural communes wood use however increased. This may partly be due to the natural transition from crop residues to wood. We find some evidence that given Viet Nam's successful small-holder plantation programs there may be places where movement up the energy ladder from wood to cleaner fuels has slowed down. In the future household factors are likely to continue being the dominant drivers of fuel switching. However, our study indicates that external interventions aimed at improving community conditions such as access to markets and highways can also facilitate households moving up the energy ladder. Our findings are of much relevance to the newly proposed policy paradigm of “making the clean available” as opposed to “making the available clean”.