The International Energy Agency (IEA) announced on Thursday that $900-million of new commitments had been made to the international Clean Cooking in Africa (CCA) initiative. Further, of the $2.2-billion pledged at the inaugural CCA summit in Paris in 2024, $740-million had already been deployed, spread across 22 African countries.

“At the 2024 Summit, I committed that we would track every dollar pledged and every stove reaching households,” highlighted IEA executive director Fatih Birol. “Our focus now is to maintain this momentum, mobilise further investment, and work with countries to turn commitments into lasting impact for the millions of people who still lack access to clean cooking.”

These figures were released at a high-level virtual event to review progress with CCA, jointly organised and with the participation of the six co-chairs of the initiative. These were (in the order given by the IEA) Kenyan President William Ruto, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, AU Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, African Development Bank President Sidi Ould Tah, and Birol himself.

“Africa cannot achieve sustainable development while nearly one billion of its people still rely on polluting cooking fuels,” asserted Ruto. “Our task is clear: to turn ambition into investment, investment into action, and action into lasting impact for the people of Africa. We must design inclusive financing and infrastructure to ensure no one is left behind. Scaling up financing is not charity; it is an investment in Africa’s future prosperity.”

“Every year polluting cooking fuels cause 850 000 premature deaths in Africa, affecting primarily women and children,” stressed Støre. “Clean cooking is one of the most underfunded opportunities in global development and climate policy. We have the technologies, and know that by working together as governments, international partners and the private sector, rapid progress can be made. Clean cooking must move from the margins to the centre of our collective effort.”

Since the 2024 summit, 121 new clean cooking policies have been developed in more than 30 countries. Together, they represented 80% of Africans who could not access clean cooking. The AU and IEA were assisting countries to increase their policy ambitions before the next summit.

“Access to clean cooking is one of the most impactful, yet overlooked, challenges of our time,” affirmed Wright. “The issue directly affects the lives of billions of people – particularly women and children. It is an infrastructure problem to which we know the solution: more energy. By expanding access to affordable and reliable propane gas, we can transform human lives across the globe.”

This year, however, has seen disruptions in the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the world’s main clean cooking fuel, caused by the interruption of shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. This has affected 30% of the LPG traded globally. This has resulted in the launch of the Clean Cooking Security Programme, an IEA-led public-private initiative, which would provide focused market and policy assistance to countries to help them strengthen their fuel security, and investigate options to reinforce global cooperation in this regard.

“Clean cooking is one of the most consequential fronts in Africa’s energy agenda, shaping the health, time and opportunity of nearly one billion Africans,” emphasised Sidi Ould Tah. “Since the inaugural Africa Clean Cooking Summit in 2024, the African Development Bank Group has increased its clean cooking financing roughly tenfold. Universal access is achievable, but it will take all of us, and we call on partners to match their ambitions with ours.”