Africa Records 815,000 Premature Deaths Annually From Using Firewood-Report
By Sunday Etuka, Abuja
About one billion people lack access to clean cooking in Africa, contributing to 815 000 premature deaths annually and significant deforestation.
A new report, Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa: Progress update and roadmap to implementation, released on Friday by the International Energy Agency (IEA) has disclosed.
According to the report, the health impacts of household air pollution affect roughly four in every five households in Africa.
“Across the continent, women and girls spend on average four hours a day gathering fuel and cooking, often foregoing education or remunerated activities as a result,” it added.
The report also said that the lack of clean cooking is also linked to the loss of 1.3 million hectares of forest each year – diminishing a key resource for the continent.
The report said about two billion people worldwide – a quarter of the global population – still cook over open fires or on basic stoves, inhaling harmful smoke and spending hours in search of fuels such as firewood or animal waste.
However, it said since 2010, almost 1.5 billion people in Asia and Latin America gained access to modern cooking stoves and fuels, halving the number of people without clean cooking in the span of fifteen years.
These efforts, according to the report, relied largely on major government initiatives to provide clean cooking, with around three quarters of those gaining access doing so through liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), 17% from electricity, and 5% from other clean cooking solutions.
IEA, however, disclosed that the policy and financing commitments made at the 2024 Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa are being delivered. Revealing that the Summit secured USD 2.2 billion in commitments from public and private sectors and policy pledges from twelve African governments.
Adding that since then, USD 470 million has been disbursed, well above the annual average required to ensure the Summit’s financing commitments are fully delivered by 2030.
The agency said based on the latest tracking, more than 70% of Africans without access live in countries that have strengthened their clean cooking policy frameworks since 2024, with 40 new policies now in place.
“Ten of the twelve African countries represented at the Summit announced or implemented new policies highlighted in their pledges, with the United Republic of Tanzania and Kenya delivering the greatest improvement in coverage,” it said.
IEA said over the past five years, key countries in sub-Saharan Africa accelerated their efforts to address the clean cooking gap, with countries like Kenya and Nigeria extending access to 2.7% of their population annually – a rate comparable to other success stories around the world.
“LPG accounted for three quarters of all people in sub-Saharan Africa who switched to cleaner cooking over that same period,” the agency said.
It said “based on a first-ever comprehensive tracking of investment into Africa’s cooking sector, the IEA estimates around USD 675 million of direct investments in infrastructure, stoves, and fuel distribution hardware occurred in 2023, a year-on-year increase of around 10%, led by growth in LPG distribution infrastructure.
“Based on the pipeline of announced projects and expected market growth, investment in Africa’s cooking sector is set to reach new highs in 2024 and 2025.”
