Double Link Corporate Venture is the Partner of the Month of September! The Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Akin Onoriode Collins shares his views on the clean cooking energy market in this interview.

Give us a brief introduction of your organization

Double-Link Corporate Venture is a social enterprise based in Agbarho, Delta State. Our mission is to develop social and economic solutions for rural and riverine communities in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region.

What does your organization seek to achieve in Nigeria’s cooking energy market?

In areas where we work, most households cannot use modern fuels such as electricity or cooking gas as a result of low incomes and availability of these energy sources.
Double-Link Corporate Ventures believes that clean energy solutions can bring big benefits for individual users, families and communities alike. For this, we blend modern technology and user-centric co-creation to make high-performance appliances that solve the most critical needs.

Can you tell us about your product and your achievements?

Double-link Corporate Ventures is working to replace traditional open fire with stoves that deliver fuel savings and smoke reduction. This saves money and time for families and contributes to empowering women as well as addressing climate change.

What risks do your business face?

A number of factors hinder our progress in providing good cooking solutions, and these include the lack of funding, awareness as well as poor enabling government policies.

What are the opportunities identified in the course of implementing your activities?

Nigeria has a big market. The opportunity of reaching 30 million households in the country encourages us to continue developing and marketing good clean cooking energy solutions.

Job creation and the empowerment of women seem to be increasingly important. How has your organization helped to drive employment generation and the empowerment of women?

Engaging women in the supply chain of our products is a priority of Double-Link Corporate Ventures. Our aim is to make women business owners and through them achieve effective distribution chain for clean cookstoves. This empowers women and creates income opportunities.

If you are asked to advise the Federal government of Nigeria on policy options, what are the three most important things the government can do to expand the market?

The federal government should promote awareness of clean cooking, stimulate local production and ensure that development finance institutions invest in this sector.

Where do you envisage your organization to be in the next 5 years in terms of advocating for women empowerment?

In the next five years we envisage our organization to be a well-established clean cookstoves manufacturer in Nigeria with more women involved in our production process and supply chain.

What risk does your organisation face and what is your biggest challenge?

Right now our biggest challenge is funding. If funding is made available, we will be able to scale up production to meet up with the market demands. Lack of awareness of clean cookstoves is another issue affecting our organization, if government or NGOs help in the awareness campaign, it will help to boost the demand for our stoves.