Africa secures $900 million in new clean cooking commitments

Fatima wakes up before dawn every morning to cook. Like hundreds of millions of mothers across Africa, she doesn't have another choice — she cooks with charcoal or wood, filling her small home in Nairobi with smoke that hangs in the air for hours.

That smoke is quietly deadly. Across the continent, indoor air pollution from cooking fuels contributes to roughly 850,000 premature deaths each year, according to the International Energy Agency. Women and children bear the worst of it, spending the most time near the fire.

But something is changing. Last Thursday, African countries secured $900 million in new financial commitments to expand access to clean cooking technologies — stoves that run on ethanol, biogas, or electricity instead of smoke-producing charcoal. The funding builds on $2.2 billion mobilized at the first Africa Clean Cooking Summit in Paris in 2024, bringing total pledges to more than $3.1 billion.

The announcements came during a virtual meeting led by the International Energy Agency and Kenya. Kenyan President William Ruto, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, African Union Infrastructure and Energy Commissioner Lerato Mataboge, and IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol all joined the call.

Birol reported that $740 million — roughly one-third of what was pledged in Paris — has already been deployed across 22 countries. That money isn't sitting on paper. It's moving into communities.

Clean cooking technologies cut the pollution at its source, right there in the kitchen. No filters needed, no waiting for policy change. Just cleaner air where families live.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined the virtual meeting and put it plainly: "Access to clean cooking is one of the most impactful yet overlooked challenges of our time. It directly affects the lives of billions of people, particularly women and children."

Ruto was direct about what comes next. "Ambition alone is not enough," he said. "It must be backed by investment." And more investment is exactly what's flowing.

The next Africa Clean Cooking Summit is expected later this year. Reaching every household that needs access will cost far more than the $3.1 billion already pledged. But the trajectory has shifted. More countries have something concrete to point to. More money is moving faster than it was two years ago. And for mothers like Fatima, that momentum could eventually mean waking up to cleaner air.