Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa

1. According to the IEA, nearly four in five people in Africa still cook their meals over open fires and traditional stoves using polluting fuels. The lack of clean cooking has dire consequences for health, gender equality and the climate, contributing to nearly half a million premature deaths of women and children annually in Africa alone. While the number of people across the continent with access has risen and progress has been made in many countries, greater effort is needed.
2. We, the representatives of African countries attending the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, recognise the various policy initiatives at the national, sub-regional, regional and continental level for the promotion and advancement of clean cooking to make it accessible and affordable.
3. We reaffirm the commitment of African countries to continue to create the necessary, appropriate, and enabling policies and conditions to advance clean cooking access and we acknowledge that putting such foundations in place will play a role in unlocking more financial flows to the clean cooking sector.
4. Accordingly, we recognise that additional steps need to be taken to make clean cooking a national, sub-regional, regional and continental issue, create a conducive policy environment, and work in concert with actors to implement these measures and track progress on clean cooking efforts.

Making clean cooking a continental and national flagship issue

1. We pledge to make clean cooking a priority issue for Africa, working with the African Union (AU), other pan-African institutions and across African countries to take concrete actions to accelerate clean cooking access.
2. We pledge to create the necessary conditions and the right environment to advance clean cooking access. This can be done by adopting – where necessary – and implementing a suite of policies and regulations adapted to national circumstances, which support scaling up clean cooking and attracting new innovations, technologies, institutions, firms, and investments.
3. In this context, we prioritise actions in two key areas: (a) ensuring efficient implementation of clean cooking programmes as part of a national priority programme; (b) creating a conducive policy and regulatory environment to support advancing clean cooking access.

Ensuring efficient implementation of clean cooking programmes and regulatory frameworks as part of a national priority programme

4. We recognise that it is essential to ensure efficient implementation of clean cooking programmes as part of a national priority programme to advance clean cooking access. We plan to adopt and implement a suite of policies and regulations adapted to national circumstances and local cultural preferences to support scaling up clean cooking and to promote new innovations, technologies, institutions, firms, and investments, in the next three years. This can include:
5. In countries where they are not yet established, encourage the appointment of a clean cooking champion and / or focal point and the setting up of a dedicated clean cooking unit  on national clean cooking initiatives at the highest or strategic levels of government to ensure effective coordination and implementation across departments, sectors, and financing partners.
6. Develop a clean cooking strategy, or enhance clean cooking in existing strategies, clearly identifying the solutions included in the official national strategy and the evolution of the mix of cooking solutions over time to provide long-term visibility to enterprises and investors on welcome investment areas.

• Integrate clean cooking directly and consistently into other national planning and budget exercises across sectors (e.g. energy, climate, health, infrastructure, education, digital infrastructure, etc.).

1. Integrate clean cooking into energy access programmes and projects on a holistic and systematic basis, encouraging local inputs.
2. Create a funded national implementation programme or support existing delivery programmes, with the objective of allocating an increasing share of national energy investment support toward clean cooking related activities.
3. Include clean cooking explicitly in funding requests to development partners, multilateral development banks, climate funds, as well as other multilateral Environmental Agreements Funds for implementing SDGs relevant for clean cooking. Specifically consider allocating portions of MDB development finance for clean cooking programmes.

Creating a conducive policy environment to support advancing clean cooking access

5. We recognise that it is critical to create a conducive policy environment to support advancing clean cooking access. We plan to implement a suite of policies and regulations adapted to national circumstances, which support scaling up clean cooking and attracting new innovations, technologies, institutions, firms, and investments, in the next three years. This can include:
6. Consider tax and import duty reductions or exemptions on eligible clean cooking technologies and fuels, for a fixed, multi-year period that helps jump start clean cooking progress that could encourage companies to set up local manufacturing supply chains.
7. Support actors across the clean cooking value chain, including 1) incentivizing manufacturers, retailers and fuelling station to facilitate the promotion of manufacturing, assembly and sale of clean cooking equipment, 2) supporting local joint ventures and start-ups, 3) enhancing the capacity of research and development institutions to develop tailor-made clean cooking solutions, 4) implementing and supporting clean cooking awareness programmes starting from the grassroots level, including primary schools, and 5) incentivise the expansion of supply chains to reach last-mile customers with stable and consistent energy supply.

• Develop targeted and carefully-designed affordability support, including by drawing upon successful practices observed in already established markets and similar projects in closely related sectors.

1. Develop skilling programmes to train the personnel needed to transport, refill, connect, install, manufacture, assemble, maintain, and repair new clean cooking technologies and fuels in conjunction with relevant industries,
2. Strengthen local expertise and Research and Development (R&D) capacity.
3. Put in place and enforce standards on clean cooking technologies, including safety and performance and quality testing, and consider linking incentives / tax exemptions to meeting these standards.

• Require that all public institutions, such as schools, prisons, and government facilities, and state-owned enterprises use clean fuels and technologies in their meal preparations. Incentivise private owned institutions to switch to clean cooking fuels and encourage all new commercial and residential buildings to incorporate provisions for the installation of clean cooking facilities.
• Design policies to facilitate the transition from illegal/informal charcoal markets, incentivizing operators to become part of the clean fuel/cooking market ecosystem.

1. Encourage specific clean cooking and related measures in updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) under the Energy Mitigation and Adaptation areas including a clarification on the eligibility of carbon credits from clean cooking projects for internationally traded mitigation outcomes.
2. Include specific clean cooking and related measures in National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Adaptation Communications to facilitate the creation of adaptation benefits that may be monetised via non-market approaches.
3. Enable the development of carbon financing by encouraging  the inclusion of clean cooking as one of the areas of focus by national relevant carbon credit authorities and implement legislation that enables African countries to be host countries for high quality clean cooking carbon projects.

• Continue the ongoing efforts to implement broader governance reform, which have been recognised as a significant factor influencing investments levels across various sectors, including clean cooking.
• Establish, and support where such efforts already exist, a mechanism to produce statistics and a database on access to clean cooking across African countries and institute annual review to make routine updates and revisions to clean cooking programmes, policies, and regulations.
• Leverage regional collaboration and free trade agreements to build stronger markets across the continent, benefitting from scale and knowledge exchanges.

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