The call was made during the first high-level clean cooking event held at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York on September 22.
Convened by Kenya and Norway with the International Energy Agency, Clean Cooking Alliance and UN Energy, the meeting sought to accelerate progress towards universal access across Africa.
Reliance on wood, charcoal and other traditional fuels contributes to indoor air pollution, deforestation and lost productivity. Women and children face the greatest health risks and spend substantial time collecting fuel. “How a family cooks affects health, forests, productivity, gender equality and the daily lives of millions of women and children in Africa,” African Development Bank Group Senior Vice-President Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade said.
“It is therefore not a marginal issue. It is central to development, climate action and human dignity.”
Mission 300, a joint initiative of the AfDB and World Bank Group, aims to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030.
Akin-Olugbade said all 36 National Energy Compacts adopted through the initiative included clean-cooking targets.
Countries are pursuing improved cookstoves, liquefied petroleum gas, electric cooking, biogas, bioethanol and briquettes.
AfDB committed $2 billion over 10 years following the first Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in 2024. About $135 million has since been directed towards clean-cooking projects, 10 times the Bank’s cumulative financing before the summit.
In Uganda, AfDB is supporting biogas plants and subsidies for efficient electric cooking appliances. Electric cooking devices are being incorporated into wider electrification investments in Tanzania.
Results-based financing in Rwanda is intended to expand clean-cooking access to 100 000 households and 300 institutions.
AfDB is also expanding concessional and catalytic financing through the Rome Process/Mattei Plan Financing Facility and Africa Clean Cooking Programme under the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.
Kenya will host the second Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in Nairobi in January 2027, where leaders and partners are expected to convert political commitments into investments and implementation plans. “Success will not be measured by the dollars we invest, but by the lives we improve,” Akin-Olugbade said.
“Clean cooking must become a central pillar of Africa’s energy transition, one that demands political leadership, sustained financing and collective action at scale.”
–AfDB/ChannelAfrica–
