Gaia Association won an Ashden Award in 2008 for their work with cookstoves burning bioethanol made from waste products. The stoves are often used in refugee camps.

Milkyas Debebe, their Managing Director, was at Copenhagen, where he was able to meet with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles:
Harry Stoves, who has worked with Gaia Association for some time, said:

As you know, Prime Minister Meles has been in the forefront of negotiations at COP15 and we have been very grateful for his efforts. He is championing, on behalf of Africa and the Global South, exactly the right things to make improved stoves and clean liquid fuels available in Africa.

Ben Dixon, programme manager on the Ashden Awards team, has just returned from a trip around East Africa, working with past Ashden Award winners. Here's a report on his trip.

I’m just back from East Africa, having spent almost three weeks working with Ashden Award winners in Ethiopia and Tanzania. It is always inspiring to see the amazing social, environmental and economic benefits that Ashden Awards winners are delivering in the communities where they work – and this trip was no exception.

I started off in Addis Ababa, where I was able to attend a workshop that the Gaia Association (2008 winners) had organised to celebrate winning their Ashden Awards with all of the partners that have supported their work. This workshop had impressive high-level attendance from the Ethiopian government, including three government ministers and the head of the government’s Environmental Protection Agency. All were very supportive of Gaia’s plans to work with their private sector partner (Makobu Enterprises) on scaling up their manufacture and supply of ethanol stoves for urban areas, and providing ethanol stoves for more refugee camps in the north of the country (partnering with the UNHCR). It was also great to meet some of their customers in Addis, who are very happy with their stoves. We are working to connect Gaia with sources of support as they build their business plan and identify the finance they will need to achieve their scale-up goals.