Afdb Champions Clean Cooking To Save Lives And Protect Africas Environment

The World Bank estimates that nearly 2 billion people worldwide, half of them in Africa, lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. While Asia has significantly reduced its clean cooking deficit over the past decade, the number of households in sub-Saharan Africa without access to clean cooking has more than doubled since 1990.

Currently, nearly four in five Africans cook meals over open fires or basic stoves. Moreover, households spend an average of five hours daily gathering firewood and cooking, depriving millions of the chance to work or attend school. This practice is also linked to serious health issues from inhaling toxic fumes, with women and girls being the most adversely affected.

The increased use of firewood, charcoal, and other unsustainable fuels in Africa has accelerated deforestation and exacerbated climate change.

Whats shocking is that the tools to improve this situation are readily available and affordable. All it requires is political willand some money, argues Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank AfDB, and Fatih Birol, Executive Director of International Energy Agency IEA.

In an op-ed published during COP28 last year, they highlighted that switching to clean cooking technologies, such as liquefied petroleum gas LPG stoves, would cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5 billion tonnes roughly the same amount generated by all planes and ships worldwide today.