Africa secures more clean cooking funding

Key Points:

• African countries have secured $900 million in new financial commitments to expand access to clean cooking technologies, raising total funding to over $3.1 billion since the Africa Clean Cooking Summit in Paris earlier this year.
• Nearly 1 billion people in Africa still rely on polluting fuels like charcoal and firewood, contributing to an estimated 850,000 premature deaths annually due to household air pollution.
• The funding supports the adoption of low-emission fuels and technologies such as ethanol, biogas, and electricity to improve health outcomes and reduce air pollution across the continent.
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that $740 million of the previous commitments has already been deployed in 22 African countries, with ongoing efforts to strengthen national clean cooking policies in collaboration with the African Union.
• A new Clean Cooking Security Programme was launched to enhance global supply chains for cooking fuels, particularly liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), addressing vulnerabilities exposed by recent shipping disruptions and supporting fuel security initiatives.