President of the Africa Development Bank, Akinwunmi Adesina has said that approximately 600,000 women and children die annually in Africa due to lack of access to clean cooking.
Adesina disclosed this while speaking at the Africa Energy Summit currently going on in Dar Salam, Tanzania.
The 2025 Africa Energy Summit, which is themed: “Mission 300” will take place on Monday and Tuesday, January 27 and 28.
Speaking during a panel session alongside representatives of the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank, Adesina explained that lack of access to clean cooking sources claims the lives of 300,000 children and 300,000 women annually.
He explained that the deaths are caused by the effect of smoke from the use of firewood or charcoal for cooking rather than clean cooking sources.
“Another thing that is part of the agenda is access to clean cooking for women. Today we have 1.2 billion women in Africa without access to clean cooking and we lose 300,000 kids every single year that their mothers carry on their back because of lack of access to clean food because of the secondary effect of smoke. We lose 300,000 women also every year,” he said.
He argued that every African should have access to clean cooking sources, stressing that one of the goals of the summit is to ensure that this is achieved.
“Why should anybody have to die just for trying to cook a decent meal that is taken for granted in other parts of the world? That is not acceptable! In good conscience, we just can’t do that. And that’s why a big part of what we’re trying to do is to make sure that women in Africa can cook decently without having to have smoke; without their kids having to die because of that.”
$4 billion annual funding required for 100% clean cooking in Africa
Adesina further disclosed that to ensure that every African has access to clean cooking, significant funding of about $4 billion is required yearly.
- He noted that the AfDB has committed $2 billion to this course.
- He also noted that Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, and some other African countries have pledged to “100% access to clean cooking solutions by 2030.”
“And we had a meeting together with the International Energy Agency, and we said we needed to raise $4 billion a year. It’s all it’s going to take, $4 billion a year. And we at African Development Bank committed to $2 billion towards that,” he revealed.
He noted that this goal is not just limited to achieving energy transition, he argued that it is more about the dignity of lives in the continent.
“It is about lives. A lot of time we talk about Energy transition, but it is not just about energy transition. Already for women in Africa, they are transitioning life just to be able to cook. It is more about dignity as far as i am concerned. Africa must develop with dignity, with pride. Its women must have access to clean cooking solutions.”
About Mission 300 million
Mission 300 is an initiative of the AfDB and the World Bank aimed at providing electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030 through African leadership, increased funding, and accelerated partnerships.
- Currently, about 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity.
- Africa accounts for over 80% of the global electricity access deficit.
At the ongoing Africa Energy Summit in Tanzania, African leaders, energy experts, civil society groups and private companies in the energy sector are discussing ways to achieve Mission 300: Providing access to electricity to 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.
