Background: Since 1940s, other than a few success stories, the outcomes of efforts of development and dissemination of improved cookstoves a have not been so fruitful. This paper presents a bottom-up approach that was successfully implemented to develop a fuel-efficient cookstove in a tribal village that has resulted in a substantial reduction in firewood consumption. Method: The approach ensured people's participation at multiple stages of the process that started from project selection by capturing people's needs/desires and studying the existing cooking practice to understand its importance in the local context. The performance of the cookstoves was evaluated by modifying a standard Water Boiling Test to accommodate the existing cooking practice. The improvement of the cookstove was achieved by fabricating a simple twisted tape assembly that could be placed on it without changing the existing cookstove. Results: The optimization of the twisted tape device was first carried out in the laboratory and then implemented in the field. The field-level tests resulted in reduction of firewood consumption by around 21% which is a substantial improvement for such a device. It was also found that the improvement reduced soot b accumulation by around 38% and time of cooking preparations by around 18.5%. Conclusion: Overall, a bottom-up and participatory process that not only addressed people's perceived needs but also ensured no changes in the existing cooking practice while providing an easy, low cost (around US$1.25) c , and locally manufacturable solution led to a highly successful improvement in the local cookstove that was accepted easily by the villagers.

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This paper describes outcomes of a 3-year participatory action research project which involved community-level decision making to choose between various technologies to supply domestic water to a tribal village. Six technology alternatives were considered, which were ranked by adopting the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). At each stage, starting from project identification to project synthesis, people's participation was sought in a true sense. This required design of novel strategies embedded in local culture, values, and language. The overall process yielded a participatory decision making method for a community, which would uphold people's involvement, a sense of ownership, and control at each step, which is required for the successful implementation and sustainable operation of the project.

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