SDG 7.1.2 – Clean cooking

The proportion of Africa’s population using clean cooking fuels and technologies has only marginally increased and achieving access to clean cooking by 2030 seems increasingly unachievable.

The second indicator for target 7.1 is the proportion of population with primary reliance on clean cooking fuels and technology (indicator 7.1.2). Results show that Africans using clean cooking fuels and technologies increased from 28.8% in 2014, to 33.6% in 2022, whilst the absolute number of people using polluting fuels and technology has increased from 843 million to 944 million.

In contrast to every other destination, SDG7-compliant finance to clean cooking has declined in the study period. The amounts committed to, or invested in, this area are only a small fraction of those for renewables, transmission & distribution (T&D) and policy. Over the whole period, financial flows amounted to only EUR 0.9 billion, equivalent to an average of EUR 0.1 billion/year. Especially from 2018 to 2022, OECD datasets show that SDG7-compliant finance for clean cooking was negligible, even compared to those made in 2014, 2015 and 2017.

The target of universal access to clean cooking by 2030 seems increasingly unachievable, as the rate of new access severely lags behind population growth, This situation is the result of very low levels of finance coming to this sector. Many reasons can be identified for this lack of funding, including the small scale of projects, risk levels, lack of adequate funding mechanisms, and lack of investable distribution companies. Tackling these challenges is critical to unlock investments in distribution infrastructure and end-user appliances, with the priority being in rural areas where the situation is the most critical, whilst providing end-user financial support to tackle the affordability challenge.