President Julius Maada Bio, along with Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella and other development partners from over 60 nations, have come together at the Clean Cooking Summit in Paris to pledge $4 billion towards providing clean cooking acces for 250 million African women by 2030 on 14 May, 2024.

This initiative aims to benefit 250 million African women by 2030. Dr Akinwumi Adesina of the African Development Bank, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, PM Jonas Gahr Støre, and IEA’s Executive Director Fatih Birol are leading this important effort to revolutionize clean cooking for nearly one billion Africans, ultimately reducing pollution-related deaths of approximately half a million women and children each year.

President Bio, who is a keynote speaker at the summit, highlights the IEA analysis on clean cooking, emphasizing that 2.3 billion people worldwide still cook using traditional methods like open fires or basic stoves, with 1 in 5 of these individuals residing in Africa. He stresses the need for action, stating that clean cooking is often overlooked in energy access planning and electrification efforts, and that the summit serves as a crucial call to address this issue for the betterment of communities globally.
The landmark event aims to drive significant change in clean cooking access for the nearly one billion Africans using polluting fuels, which cause the premature deaths of approximately half a million women and children every year.

The Summit in Paris delivered a breakthrough financial commitment to providing clean cooking access to the more than one billion people in Africa, who currently lack it. The Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, the first-ever such initiative, has mobilised US$2.2 billion in financial pledges from governments and the private sector to address one of the world’s most persistent and deep-seated inequalities, according to a press release issued by the organisers on Tuesday.

President Emmanual Macron of France is hosting a special session for heads of state and other leaders at the Elysée Palace on the occasion of the Summit.