Using the Multi-Tier Framework mentioned above, based on a 71-country sample of 5.3 billion people representing 90% of lower and lower-middle-income countries, a report found that “4 billion people lack the ability to cook efficiently, cleanly, conveniently, reliably, safely, affordably. Sub-Saharan Africa has the smallest share of people with access to MECS, at 10 percent, while Latin America and the Caribbean and East Asia have the highest shares, at 56 percent and 36 percent, respectively”. The population growth in sub-Saharan Africa continues to surpass the number of people with access to clean cooking, resulting in a stagnating ‘access deficit’ that has even doubled since 1990, reaching a total of 923 million people in 2020. This highlights an obstacle to progress in the clean cooking initiative and raises other issues such as the lack of funding.
The level of funding and investment in the clean cooking sector had not matched the global magnitude of the challenge, hovering around US$130 million, well below the US$4.5 billion that was required annually by 2020 to scale clean cooking to the 2.4 billion people who still depend on polluting fuels. Additionally, according to a report completed by the World Bank Group, the complexity and fragmentation of the cooking ecosystem, both through supply and demand generation, has been identified as another obstacle that struggles with the achievement of economies of scale. In the Sub-Saharan region, for example, 15 alternative biofuel businesses (e.g., ethanol and pellets)—less than 18 percent of the estimated active number—consistently supply more than 5,000 households with cooking fuel; just 7 businesses (less than 8 percent) reach over 20,000 households, while only 1 claims to reach more than 100,000 customers regularly (2017 figures).
Another factor identified within this report is the lack of coordination within and between institutions in country contexts that have skewed the trajectory of cooking interventions from becoming high-impact policy priorities. In Sub-Saharan Africa, multiple countries have experienced a decline of more than 50% in financing commitments where financing could have the most impact. This problem is compounded by the complex and multi-sectoral nature of cooking policy and initiatives, as comprehensive solutions require the involvement of a variety of stakeholders from energy, health, climate, industry, finance, rural and urban development, gender, and social protection.
Various reports have recommended the involvement of private investors and entrepreneurs to drive targeted seed and growth capital toward supply-side innovators and first-movers, particularly those advancing a cooking-utility model that considers household needs holistically, in addition to pursuing blended finance commitments from donors and development institutions to aid expand the leverage available for investing in emerging and best-in-class business models.
