Africa is home to nearly one billion people who lack access to clean cooking solutions, relying instead on wood, charcoal, kerosene, or other polluting fuels. This has devastating consequences for their health, environment, and development. According to the African Development Bank, about 600,000 African women and children die annually from the hazards of cooking with these fuels, and the global economic cost of women’s time lost in search of fuel wood is estimated at $800 billion annually. Moreover, the use of traditional biomass and fossil fuels contributes to deforestation, climate change, and air pollution.
However, there is hope for change. On the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, global leaders and stakeholders gathered to call for increased resources and political commitment to provide universal access to clean cooking solutions in Africa by 2030. The event, titled “A Call for Action: Universal Clean Cooking Access in Africa”, saw the launch of an Africa Clean Cooking Consortium to accelerate the adoption of efficient, clean, and sustainable cooking technologies across the continent.
The consortium, which brings together the African Union Commission, five African governments, the government of Ireland, the private sector, and civil society, aims to mobilize $4 billion in annual investment to provide 250 million people with clean cooking energy. The consortium will also support the development of national policies and regulations, the creation of enabling environments for market growth, the scaling up of innovative financing mechanisms, and the promotion of consumer awareness and behavior change.
The President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, announced that the bank will allocate up to 20 percent of its approved annual lending for energy toward clean cooking solutions, generating $2 billion for clean cooking over the next 10 years. He also urged national governments to allocate at least 5 percent of their annual energy investment for clean cooking, and multilateral development banks to set aside a significant share of their energy financing for clean cooking.
“Providing access to clean cooking is doable in Africa. Let us prioritize saving the lives of women and children; let us make it easier for women to cook in dignity and safety. Clean cooking will save forests, climate, and lives of women and children,” Adesina said.
The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, echoed Adesina’s call and warned that “without solving the problem of clean cooking in Africa, the global plan of decarbonizing would not be meaningful.” He said that developed nations must scale up their funding to provide clean cooking solutions to 900 million households in Africa, and announced plans to make clean cooking a key topic on the IEA’s global conference agenda in February 2024.
The President of Sierra Leone, Julius Maada Bio, affirmed the commitments of African governments to prioritize clean cooking across the continent. “We will stand together as leaders of Africa to bring clean cooking to the highest political level and make it a priority development issue for the whole world,” he said.
The event also highlighted some of the success stories and best practices of clean cooking initiatives in Africa, such as the Clean Cooking Delivery Unit in Kenya, the African Women Clean Cooking Support Programme in Tanzania, and the innovative technologies developed by local entrepreneurs with the support of the West African Clean Cooking Alliance.
The Africa Clean Cooking Consortium is expected to be a game-changer for the continent’s energy transition and sustainable development, as well as a catalyst for global action on clean cooking. By providing access to clean cooking solutions to millions of Africans, the consortium will not only improve their health and well-being but also empower them to contribute to the green economy and the fight against climate change.
Source: Zawya
