Unraveling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa

This fact sheet describes an interdisciplinary project running from October 2013 to October 2015, funded by the UK National Environmental Research Council (NERC) through the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme. The project aims to understand the impacts of biofuel production and use on ecosystem services, human wellbeing, and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically focusing on sugar cane and jatropha feedstocks.

• The project's primary objective is to establish a comprehensive understanding of how biofuel production and use in sub-Saharan Africa impact ecosystem services, human wellbeing, and poverty alleviation, with the goal of identifying strategies to minimize potential trade-offs.
• The research focuses on comparing different modes of biofuel production and use, analyzing how biofuel-driven ecosystem changes affect human wellbeing, and identifying institutional arrangements that can enhance pro-poor benefits.
• The project utilizes a combination of social and natural science methods—including household surveys, focus groups, lifecycle analysis, ecological methodologies, and remote sensing—across four case study sites in Malawi (Illovo and Dwangwa, BERL), Swaziland (RSSC/SWADE), and Mozambique (Niqel).
• Malawi is a central focus of the project because it is the only African nation to have blended sugar cane ethanol with conventional transport fuel in high quantities for the last 30 years.
• The project examines specific ecosystem services, including water, pollination, climate regulation, woodland products, and feedstocks for fuel, as well as poverty dimensions such as energy poverty, food security, public health, education, employment, and income.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Unraveling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2014-Unraveling-brochure-online.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Unraveling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2014-Unraveling-brochure-online.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Unraveling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2014-Unraveling-brochure-online.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendunraveling, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Unraveling biofuel impacts on ecosystem services, human wellbeing and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2014-Unraveling-brochure-online.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }