Stakeholders Eye $4bn to Close Clean Cooking Funding Gap

By Adedapo Adesanya

Stakeholders will be aiming to secure commitments toward the $4 billion needed to close the clean cooking funding gap for African women at the upcoming Paris Summit.

The summit is expected to build on ground-breaking clean cooking initiatives launched at COP28 with Development partners gathering in Paris on May 14 is expected to pledge towards the $4 billion needed to provide clean cooking access for 250 million African women by 2030.

The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Mr Akinwumi Adesina, will co-chair the Clean Cooking Summit alongside President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway, and International Energy Agency Executive Director, Mr Fatih Birol.

The event aims to drive significant change in clean cooking access for the nearly one billion Africans using polluting fuels, which cause the premature deaths of approximately half a million women and children every year.

Women and girls spend up to five hours a day collecting fuel and cooking. This leaves little time for education and social or economic activities. Worldwide, the annual economic cost of women’s and girl’s time searching for fuel wood is estimated at $800 billion while the health costs are as high as $1.4 trillion.

The $4 billion needed annually is a small fraction of the $2.8 trillion invested globally in energy each year.

The summit aims to mobilize this much-needed finance. It brings together governments, development partners, private companies and NGOs to make concrete commitments and develop action-oriented strategies to accelerate progress on clean cooking.

These stakeholders are expected to pledge increased funding for clean cooking, with development partners committing to allocate a higher share of their energy portfolios and to work through private capital arms to bring more financing. Governments will prioritise clean cooking in national planning, create funded implementation programs, and introduce proven policies to support scaling clean cooking solutions.

AfDB chief, Mr Adesina, has committed the bank’s strong support and outlined a three-pronged approach to achieve universal clean cooking access in Africa. It entails governments directing at least 5 oer cent of their annual energy investments towards clean cooking solutions and having multilateral and development finance institutions set aside a significant share of their annual energy financing for clean cooking solutions, including concessional blended financing and guarantees.

At COP28, Mr Adesina said that the lender will channel $2 billion for clean cooking over the next decade. He also joined global leaders in rallying around the Africa Women Clean Cooking Support Program launched by Tanzania’s President Suluhu Hassan.