The African Development Bank Group has called for clean cooking to be treated as a development imperative and placed at the centre of Africa’s energy transition, as nearly one billion Africans continue to lack access to clean cooking solutions.
The call was made during a High-Level Heads of State Event on Clean Cooking in Africa held on September 22, 2026, on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The event, convened by Kenya and Norway in collaboration with the International Energy Agency, the Clean Cooking Alliance and UN Energy, brought together African heads of state, ministers, multilateral development banks and development partners to accelerate efforts towards universal access to clean cooking.
African Development Bank Group Senior Vice President Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, representing AfDB President Sidi Ould Tah, said clean cooking must no longer be treated as a secondary issue in Africa’s energy transition.
“How a family cooks affects health, forests, productivity, gender equality, and the daily lives of millions of women and children in Africa,” she said.
“It is therefore not a marginal issue; it is central to development, climate action and human dignity.”
The Bank said households without access to clean cooking continue to rely heavily on wood, charcoal and other traditional biomass fuels, contributing to indoor air pollution, deforestation and lost productivity, with women and children bearing a disproportionate burden.
Under the Mission 300 initiative, a joint effort by the African Development Bank and World Bank to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030, all 36 National Energy Compacts adopted so far include clean cooking ambitions.
Countries are pursuing different solutions, including improved cookstoves, liquefied petroleum gas, electric cooking, biogas, bioethanol and briquettes.
Following the first Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in 2024, the AfDB committed to mobilise US$2 billion over ten years for clean cooking.
It has so far channelled approximately US$135 million to clean cooking projects, representing a ten-fold increase compared with its cumulative financing for the sector before the 2024 summit.
The Bank is supporting clean cooking initiatives in countries including Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, while also expanding concessional and catalytic financing through the Rome Process/Mattei Plan Financing Facility and the Africa Clean Cooking Program under the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.
Kenya is expected to host the second Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in Nairobi in January 2027, where governments and partners are expected to translate the political commitments made in New York into investment and implementation plans.
“Success will not be measured by the dollars we invest, but by the lives we improve,” Akin-Olugbade said, urging sustained political leadership, financing and collective action to scale up clean cooking across Africa.