His Excellency President Dr. Julius Maada Bio has served as Keynote Speaker at the first ever Clean Cooking in Paris.
President Bio said: “I was honoured to deliver the keynote address at the first ever Clean Cooking in Paris. I outlined my government’s strategic initiatives to prioritise access to clean cooking. I applaud the IEA and AfDB Group for their investments in the health and future of our women, our communities, and our planet. This summit will heighten awareness of the need for access to clean cooking in Africa and the need for governments and international partners to collaborate closely”.
The world is falling behind on its goal to deliver affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. One area in particular — clean cooking — has seen a concerning lack of progress, with nearly four in five African people still cooking their meals over open fires and traditional stoves using polluting fuels.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has been monitoring this issue for over two decades, providing data and analysis, including as one of the custodian agencies of Sustainable Development Goal 7.
The lack of access to clean cooking has dire consequences for health, the climate and gender equality, contributing to nearly half a million premature deaths of women and children annually in Africa alone.
The cost of solving this issue is relatively small, with the IEA estimating that just USD 4 billion of capital investments would be required annually to achieve clean cooking access for all African people by 2030.
On Tuesday 14 May 2024, to address this pressing crisis, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania H.E. Samia Suluhu Hassan, the Prime Minister of Norway H.E. Jonas Gahr Støre, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Dr. Fatih Birol and the President of the African Development Bank Group Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina will co-chair the Summit on Clean
Cooking in Africa.
The Summit, to be held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (125, avenue de Suffren, 75007 Paris), invites global leaders to join the call to make 2024 the pivotal year for addressing the lack of clean cooking in Africa. The Summit builds on existing initiatives, including Tanzania’s Africa Women Clean Cooking Support Program launched at COP28 to provide access to clean cooking for women.
The aims of the Summit are to:
- Elevate clean cooking on the global agenda and mobilise a broader coalition of support for this critical issue.
- Mobilise financial commitments for clean cooking from governments, development agencies, development banks, climate funds, the private sector, philanthropies and non-governmental organisations.
- Develop a roadmap of concrete, action-oriented strategies around financing, carbon markets, policies and partnerships that will help better mobilise additional support to scale successful clean cooking efforts.
To prepare for the summit, the IEA has conducted over 150 technical consultations with key stakeholders in governments, development agencies, financial institutions, international and non-governmental organisations and the private sector.
Through these consultations, the IEA identified several outcomes and commitments that could be made at the Summit, which have proven successful in other parts of the world.
These commitments were later prioritised after hearing from over 100 participants from more than 20 countries at an Expert Workshop on 7 March held at the
IEA. This document provides a high-level summary of the target outcomes discussed at the Expert Workshop and multiple consultations, which will be used to engage with attendees as they consider potential commitments for the Summit.
These commitments will consist of both those announced by individual organisations as well as collective pledges on key principles, which will be negotiated and agreed on within different stakeholder groups (e.g. implementing countries, development agencies, etc).
The IEA will work together with its co-chairs, expert advisors and other Summit attendees to mobilise these commitments in the lead-up to the Summit. To ensure these commitments are realised in a timely manner, the IEA is developing an implementation roadmap, including a plan for how future events (e.g. G20, COP, AU) can be used to further advance the clean cooking agenda.
Below are the initial high-level outcomes that stakeholders identified as a starting point for discussions on individual and collective commitments at the Summit.
The finance community pledges to increase funding for clean cooking. Development and philanthropic partners commit to allocate a higher share of their energy-related portfolio to support clean cooking. Development partners also commit to working through their private capital arms (i.e. development finance institutions) to bring more financing to clean cooking. All actors agree to commit a greater share of concessional support towards vehicles that help deploy commercial capital for clean cooking companies and projects.
The carbon markets community pledges to enhance high-integrity carbon credits from clean cooking projects, and to work with countries, companies, and intermediaries to create additional demand for such carbon credits.
Governments of sub-Saharan African countries prioritise clean cooking and include it in national planning across sectors. Governments also create a funded national implementation programme, aiming for a rising share of their energy investments going to support clean cooking, and explicitly include clean cooking in official funding requests to development and climate finance institutions.
Countries commit to implementing a suite of proven policies and regulations in the next two years that reflect national circumstances and support scaling clean cooking, including implementing carbon credit legislation, addressing a lack of clean cooking in institutional contexts, considering tax and import duty reductions on eligible clean cooking equipment and fuels, clarifying clean cooking within their Nationally Determined Contributions and drafting gender-targeted measures addressing those adversely impacted by cooking poverty.
Industry, international organisations and multilateral fora affirm their support for governments and development partners working to realise these targets. Major companies make commitments specific to their industry segment, focused on scaling their supply chains and distribution networks.
Implementing partners and international organisations commit to taking forward outcomes of the Summit, establishing and building upon multi-stakeholder initiatives that support tracking progress and helping build delivery capacity.
The presidencies of key multi-lateral fora, such as G20 and COPs, affirm their intention to feature clean cooking in their agendas, ensuring consistent multi-year support for clean cooking.
