From Smoke to Sustainability: The Fight for Universal Clean Cooking Access

The UNDP’s policy brief highlights the urgent need to accelerate clean cooking access for 2.1 billion people still relying on polluting fuels, emphasizing policy reforms, financial investments, electrification, and behavioral insights to drive a sustainable transition. Without bold action, 1.8 billion people will still lack clean cooking by 2030, risking severe health, economic, and environmental consequences.

The clean energy transition is progressing rapidly, yet the world is failing to keep pace in one critical area: clean cooking. Despite extensive research by institutions like the International Energy Agency (IEA), International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), over 2.1 billion people still lack access to modern cooking technologies. The continued reliance on wood, charcoal, and dung for cooking is causing severe health, environmental, and socio-economic consequences. Household air pollution from traditional cooking methods leads to 3.2 million premature deaths annually, with women and children disproportionately affected. Many women spend up to five hours daily gathering firewood, limiting their time for education and income-generating activities. The economic cost of inaction is staggering—estimated at $2.4 trillion per year—driven by health expenses, deforestation, and lost productivity. While electricity access has improved significantly, clean cooking has seen only marginal progress, and if urgent action is not taken, 1.8 billion people will still lack clean cooking by 2030. In response, UNDP has launched a policy brief, No Time to Waste: Pathways to Deliver Clean Cooking for All, offering a roadmap for policymakers, development practitioners, and private sector leaders.

National Strategies: Making Clean Cooking a Policy Priority

To address this crisis, governments must take the lead in establishing national clean cooking strategies. These policies must be backed by strong regulatory frameworks, clear implementation targets, and integration into broader energy, health, and economic development plans. Clean cooking should no longer be seen as an isolated issue but as a fundamental component of sustainable development.

UNDP’s Accelerated Clean Cooking Action project in Kenya demonstrates the impact of proactive policies. By supporting county-level energy planning, this initiative has helped integrate clean cooking into local energy strategies, creating pathways for investment and market growth. Similarly, in Uganda, UNDP worked with the Electricity Regulatory Authority to electrify the kitchen at Mulago National Referral Hospital, reducing reliance on biomass. The project led to a national policy change, lowering electricity tariffs to encourage the transition to electric cooking. These examples highlight the importance of political commitment and cross-sector collaboration to drive systemic change in clean cooking adoption.

Unlocking Finance: The $8 Billion Annual Gap

Despite its critical importance, clean cooking remains severely underfunded. The sector currently receives only $2.5 billion annually, far below the required $8 billion per year needed to achieve universal access by 2030. To bridge this financing gap, governments, development banks, and the private sector must work together to create innovative financial mechanisms.

UNDP is leading efforts to mobilize investment through initiatives like blended finance, concessional loans, and carbon markets. In Tanzania, the UNCDF-supported CookFund program is providing financial support to clean cooking businesses, helping them expand their reach and lower costs for consumers. Meanwhile, UNDP’s High-Integrity Carbon Markets Initiative is helping countries leverage carbon finance, ensuring that clean cooking projects can generate reliable carbon credits to reduce costs and attract investment. If structured properly, carbon markets can significantly reduce the cost of clean cooking technologies for consumers while funding large-scale deployment.

Electrification and Data: The Power of Smart Planning

Electrification is emerging as a viable clean cooking solution, but its potential remains largely untapped. Many countries with growing electricity access still rely heavily on biomass cooking, creating a paradox where modern energy is available, yet not used for cooking. To solve this issue, clean cooking must be integrated into electrification planning from the outset.

UNDP is advocating for data-driven electrification strategies that incorporate electric cooking appliances into rural energy expansion plans. In Zambia, UNDP is developing a policy roadmap to promote the use of electric stoves in mini-grid projects, ensuring that electrification translates into tangible cooking solutions. The University of Loughborough’s MECS (Modern Energy Cooking Services) program has shown that when electric cooking is included in minigrid planning, it can improve business viability, reduce electricity tariffs, and accelerate adoption. By using AI, geospatial data, and digital tools, policymakers can better understand fuel choices, track cooking behavior, and design smarter interventions that encourage the transition to modern cooking solutions.

Behavioral Insights: Understanding Communities and Driving Change

Cultural norms, affordability, and household decision-making play a crucial role in cooking choices. Many communities engage in fuel stacking, using multiple fuel sources rather than fully transitioning to clean cooking. This nonlinear behavior requires tailored interventions that reflect local realities rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach.

UNDP is working to improve national data collection on clean cooking adoption, ensuring that behavioral insights inform policy decisions. The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2024, developed in partnership with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, highlights how reliance on solid fuels correlates with broader poverty indicators. Understanding these relationships allows policymakers to develop solutions that align with economic realities. Additionally, community asset mapping and randomized control trials can reveal the social and financial barriers to clean cooking adoption, ensuring that interventions are gender-responsive, culturally sensitive, and community-driven.

The Future of Clean Cooking: A Call for Bold Action

The clean cooking crisis is solvable, but only if action is taken at scale and with urgency. UNDP’s ambition to provide clean energy access to 500 million people by 2025 requires unprecedented levels of collaboration, investment, and policy commitment. Governments must prioritize clean cooking in national development plans, financial institutions must scale up investment, and the private sector must develop affordable and scalable technologies. International organizations, researchers, and civil society must work together to drive a systemic shift that ensures clean cooking becomes the global standard rather than an afterthought.

Advances in AI, geospatial analytics, and digital finance provide new opportunities to make clean cooking more accessible and affordable. Platforms like Energy Access Explorer and the OnStove Tool are already helping policymakers make smarter, data-driven decisions on clean cooking interventions. With the right mix of policy, finance, and innovation, clean cooking can become a reality for all, ensuring better health, economic opportunities, and environmental sustainability. The world cannot afford to delay for billions of people, every meal prepared over an open flame is a reminder that the time for action is now.