sources and technologies have the potential to provide solutions
to the long-standing energy problems being faced by the developing
countries. The expansion of existing energy resources and
exploration of new sources is an important exercise to be considered
in order to sustain their development initiatives. Although
the bio-resource base of Pakistan is substantial but its contribution
to useful energy is relatively low. An indirect consequence of
the low efficiency energy use is that the carbon emissions would
be high. Factors such as collection, processing, low end use efficiency
of conventional devices and insufficient maturity of present
biomass energy technologies are major barriers for utilizing the
available bio-resources more efficiently and on a sustainable basis.
Utilization of a basket of energy technologies, rather than a single
technology (as is the current norm in most government programs)
to deliver energy and economic services in rural areas seems to
hold the key for successful commercialization and mainstreaming
of biomass energy technologies [5] as providing clean and affordable
energy reliably for poor households in developing countries
is an important prerequisite in the fight against poverty [7,12]. In
this paper we called attention to issues and challenges in utilization
biomass energy in Pakistan in context of sustainable development.