From 5-7 November the clean cooking sector will gather in Nairobi, Kenya, for the Clean Cooking Forum 2019. Under the theme ‘Investment. Innovation. Impact.’ the sector is keen to find new- and scale proven solutions that make clean cooking accessible to the three billion people who currently live without it. The forum will be co-hosted by the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) and the Kenya Ministry of Energy.
As for Hivos and ENERGIA clean cooking is one of the core areas of impact, it is committed to contribute to finding solutions to the pressing cooking challenge. As such we will visit the forum and partake in the debates during the event.
Leadership for Clean Cooking Coalition
One of our objectives at the event is to present the Leadership for Clean Cooking Coalition in Africa. Hivos and ENERGIA, together with Hon. Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, and UNDESA initiated this coalition that is now taken forward by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNDP, the WorldBank, and supported by others like MECS and the CCA. This coalition of leaders, which will be comprised of Heads of State or ministerial level, will create the necessary political momentum for clean cooking solutions, increase public support, drive potential solutions and spur investments.
Clean Cooking Fund
The event will also feature the recently established Clean Cooking Fund of the World Bank, next to political leadership a key element to spur access to clean cooking. This fund will provide financial and technical support, primarily through results-based funding grants, to help countries incentivize the private sector to deliver clean cooking services. The effort will help leverage investments from multilateral development banks and support a global platform for knowledge and innovation, including the Health and Energy Platform for Action (HEPA).
Health and Energy Platform for Action
Third in row to make a change in the clean cooking landscape is the establishment of HEPA. HEPA is being convened by WHO and UNDP, and strongly supported by UN DESA and the World Bank as well as other stakeholders such as the CCA, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll), and Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) Program, but also Hivos and Energia. The platform aims at strengthening the political and technical cooperation between the health and energy sectors at both global and country level. The initial focus is on clean cooking and energy for health care facilities.
Hivos biogas program
Besides focusing on the Leadership for Clean Cooking Coalition, the Clean Cooking Fund and HEPA, Hivos will also present its other work on clean cooking, more specifically biogas and research. This year, our Africa Biogas Partnership Program (ABPP) celebrates ten years of impact with an event prior to the Clean Cooking Forum.
The program provides families with livestock with an alternative to firewood and charcoal. From 2009 to this date, 70,000 biogas digesters were installed in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, enabling more than 500,000 people energy access. Together with our biogas programs in Cambodia and Indonesia, this number increases to 120,000 biogas digesters. This has substantially improved health and living conditions of hundred thousands of people (mainly women and children).
Research
Hivos has conducted several researches on the economic viability of electric cooking. Our latest piece ‘Beyond Fire: how to achieve electric cooking‘ has found electric cooking to be cost-competitive with other solutions and thus provides, economically, a viable solution.
In several research projects of its Gender and Energy Research Programme, ENERGIA looked into viability of adoption for and drivers for switching to clean cooking. Findings related to cooking can be found in the reports of Research Area 1: Factors that enhance or restrict women’s opportunities and empowerment through electrification, Research Area 2: Productive uses of energy in the street food sector, Research Area 3: Gender factors in political economy of energy sector dynamics, Research Area 4: Energy Sector reforms and regulation and Research Area 6: Unlocking the benefits of productive uses of energy.
All above initiatives and programs will take central role in several discussions during the Clean Cooking Forum. Hivos and partners will, amongst other activities, engage in the opening and closing sessions and a side event specifically focusing on the Leadership for Clean Cooking Coalition, the Clean Cooking Fund and HEPA.
See the Clean Cooking Forum 2019 website for more information about the program.
Our colleagues Rita Poppe and Sheila Oparaocha (ENERGIA), Harry Clemens, Jean Marc Sika and Fred Marree will represent Hivos at the forum. Please reach out to them via twitter or send an email to Merit Hindriks (mhindriks@hivos.org).
