Clean Cooking Call Takes Center Stage in Africa
Every day, nearly one billion Africans prepare meals over firewood, charcoal, or kerosene stoves. These methods are not only extremely outdated, what’s more is that they are dangerous. The International Energy Agency has now placed “clean cooking” at the top of its priority list for Africa, because the smoke from traditional stoves causes over 800,000 in just a year. [1] This alone on paper outweighs many different types of other recorded causes of death, leaving out the unknown ones, which makes this issue much more dangerous and in need of further consideration in it’s solutions.
Governments across the continent are being urged to act. The IEA has called for 4$ billion [1], not just in cleaner stoves, but in real, lasting solutions that will give them further space to breathe to think of a final solution. Some them include but are not limited to; gas distribution networks, electric grids, clean fuel supply chains, etc. Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana are beginning to respond. But the path is not easy, it is not a problem that can be solved overnight, but leaving it would damage us greatly.
Several African countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria Kenya have begun introducing national plans to scale clean cooking technologies [2], but implementation remains inconsistent due to mostly funding and policy challenges. The agency emphasizes that clean cooking is essential for meeting broader goals, such as public health, energy access, and climate resilience. However, it warns that without significant intervention, the number of people lacking access to clean cooking in Africa may remain unchanged by the end of the decade. As it will all just be words without proper backing and action.
The report concludes by positing clean cooking as both a health priority and a development opportunity, noting that large-scale solutions will require innovation, sustained public investment, awareness, and agreement. But even as just a theory it raises hopes for healthcare improvement, and technology as even a lone fact could make multiple assumptions waver in the face of real African deaths. This shows that Africa will have to tackle this problem with utmost seriousness and resources.
[1] Universal access to clean cooking in africa
[2] Meeting clean cooking challenges
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