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The African Energy Commission (AFREC) has called for urgent action to scale up financing for clean cooking in Africa ahead of the Second Summit on clean cooking planned for Nairobi, Kenya in July, this year.
Speaking at the Second Policy and Technical dialogue on clean cooking Zoom Meeting, AFREC Executive Director Rashid Ali Abdallah said the meeting aimed to bridge the gap between political momentum and concrete investment.
The dialogue, held on May 12, 2026, focused on “From Policy to Investment: Unlocking Finance for Clean Cooking at Scale.” It brought together Ambassador Ali Mohammed, Special Envoy for Climate Change for the Government of Kenya, and delegates from African Union Member States, Regional Economic Communities, and partners.
In a speech read on his behalf by Samson Nougbodohoue, Head of Energy Information Systems and Statistics at the African Energy Commission (AFREC), Abdallah said the session was the second in a series consolidating efforts for the summit.
Abdallah expressed gratitude to the Summit Chairpersons including Kenya, the International Energy Agency (IEA), Norway, and the USA.
“Today marks our second session as we consolidate our efforts to the Second Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa planned in Nairobi this July. Special thanks to the Summit Chairs—the Government of Kenya represented here today by Ambassador Mohammed, the IEA, Norway, and the USA—for driving this vital agenda, he said.
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Abdallah said through the dialogues, AFREC was uniting Africa’s voice around priority clean cooking interventions that were to be presented at the Summit.
He highlighted that nearly 1 billion people across Africa still relied on polluting fuels for daily cooking, representing roughly 50percent of the global population without access.
Abdallah said the practice hid a devastating crisis that robbed health, slashed productivity, and damaged the environment, with losses estimated at over US$791 billion per annum on the continent.
“In response to this urgent call of duty, the African Energy Commission, through the Africa Clean Cooking Programme, calls for a four-fold strategy,” he said.
Abdallah said the strategy included making clean cooking a top priority in national, regional and continental agenda, leveraging a basket of local fuels and solutions, localizing manufacturing value chains in Africa, and addressing the financing gap with proper tracking and reporting.
He noted that while political awareness was rising and the African Union declared clean cooking a top continental priority, actual funding remained low despite IEA projections that Africa required US$4 billion annually.
Abdallah attributed the shortfall to fragmented regulatory regimes, inadequate fiscal incentives, absence of coordinated national strategies, and weak institutional mandates that make markets appear too risky and uncertain for investment.
“I thank our partners, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), for co-hosting these dialogues with AFREC and as chairs of the upcoming Summit for creating a platform to turn our growing political commitments into investments,” he said.
He added that the discussions would help shape a unified African voice for the upcoming summit in Nairobi and yield hope for women and girls who bore the heaviest burden of cooking poverty.
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