welfare cost of elevated premature mortality risk (Narain and Sall, 2016), as well as the welfare cost of threats to child health and development.

An additional important question, with philosophical as well as methodological dimensions, involves the extent to which threats to family health are internalized by those making choices about cooking approaches (including fuel, stove type, ventilation, and presence of children), and the extent to which those preferences should drive policy decisions. Rational choice theory would imply that users would balance costs and other factors against health threats when deciding how to cook. In practice, however, households may not be very well informed about the consequences of these choices; may discount the consequences of pollutant exposure, either because of their longer-term nature or for other reasons; may find cleaner stoves or alternative fuels less convenient to use; or for other reasons may value smoke reductions differently – and typically less – than estimates based on highly controlled cost-of-illness studies (Mobarak et al., 2012).

Consequently, greater awareness of the adverse effects of exposure to indoor air pollution may make cleaner fuels or stoves more attractive, but so would offering a package of measures for promoting cleaner and improved cooking alternatives, including greater stove durability and ease of use as well as financing options (Pattanayak et al., 2016). Aside from time discounting, individuals may associate a relatively lower cost with pollutant exposure than would be implied by cost-of-illness studies because they underestimate their own vulnerability, or because longestablished habits are not easily changed. Sunstein (2012-2013) provides a discussion of these and other possibilities, and advances the argument that public policy should contain an element of paternalism in such situations by not being entirely bound by revealed individual preferences if those preferences reflect incomplete or incorrect information.

Other health threats for women and girls include insects and snake bites and musculoskeletal injuries associated with collection of fuelwood for cooking. Especially disturbing is that fuelwood collection is one of the key sources of physical and psychological violence against women. Somali refugee women have been raped while gathering fuelwood around camps bordering the SomaliKenyan border, and women in Sarajevo, Bosnia, faced sniper fire while gathering fuel (Reddy et al. <u>1997). In Darfur, Sudan, women were frequently assaulted and attacked while collecting</u> fuelwood; many trekked hours at dusk and dawn to avoid exposure to the sun, but these were also the times when walking alone was least safe <u>(Gaye 2008). Fuelwood collection is one of the</u> greatest risks of sexual violence against women in refugee camps in Africa.<sup>10</sup> Another source of external cost is the contribution of cooking energy use to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This could result from net forest degradation from fuelwood gathering (van der Werf et al., 2009; Saatchi et al., 2011), or the effects of “black carbon” – a short-lived pollutant from fuelwood use that contributes to climate change (Bond et al., 2013). Forest degradation can also generate local natural resource damages, such as soil erosion that compromises water sources, and losses of habitats and can increase fuelwood collection times (Cooke et al., 2008; Amacher et al., 2004; Bluffstone, 1995). If forest resources are open access, meaning that collections are uncontrolled, spillover effects of fuelwood harvest decisions on other collectors are likely to not be properly internalized.

> 10 Energy Matters: Women at Risk, African Clean Energy, http://www.africancleanenergy.com/energymatters- <u>women-at-risk/.</u>

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