Biogas is the signature programme of SNV in the region and has the potential to be scaled up within existing countries and in new ones to more than two million people by 2010.  Domestic biogas plants reduce poverty, protect the environment and enhance the lives of women through increasing household incomes, reducing household expenditures, improving household living conditions and family health, by using animal, human and vegetable waste for cooking gas and fertilizer.

The development of a tried and tested technology combined with a successful implementation approach involving households, government services, the private sector and external financing has resulted in huge demand across the region which remains largely untapped. SNV is uniquely placed with the experience and the competencies to support the institutions and organisations that want to meet this demand.  Expansion will continue in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal and Vietnam, and new possibilities will be explored in Pakistan.

With the biogas programme more than 220,000 households (1.35 million people) in five Asian countries have been reached. Read more on the special websites on biogas in Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh (projects), and Cambodia.

Two related innovations in renewable energy that will benefit women and reduce poverty will be investigated: research and development into fuel efficient, environmentally-friendly cooking stoves as an alternative to biogas for households without livestock; and R &D into improved traditional water mills to increase incomes, create employment and reduce women’s workloads.