When working with the issues of poverty alleviation, and those at the bottom of the pyramid, I am constantly amazed by how simple it is to make improvements through the use of existing technologies and a little money.

World Bank loans money to China for biogas project highlights one of those efforts:

The World Bank has announced that it will invest $120 million in China’s National Rural Biogas Program to use anaerobic digestion to process waste to produce biogas for cooking. The grant will help farmers in China’s Anhui, Hunan, Guangxi and Hubei provinces and Chongqing municipality residents improve their living conditions by using anaerobic digestion to process human, livestock, plant agricultural, and organic household waste to produce biogas for cooking.

And for those who are looking to accomplish this in a manner that does not further weigh down the carbon/ water/ energy footprint of humanity, this is one of those programs.

Not only are savings found in that the infrastructure to do this through more traditional means (connecting them to the grid) are avoided, but long term the improve health benefits of gas over wood will also reduce the long term costs that the local/ regional governments would spend on healthcare.