At the Summit on Clean Cooking for Africa on May 14, 2024 in Paris, France, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) announced a strategic partnership to further embed clean cooking into a broad range of sustainable development initiatives across the two organisations. The partnership aims to improve lives among the 2.3 billion people around the world who currently lack access to clean cooking — including four out of five people in Africa who have no choice but to use wood, charcoal and other polluting fuels and traditional stoves or even open fires. Clean cooking, on the other hand, includes the use of modern stoves and cleaner fuels that reduces exposure to toxic pollutants.
This partnership builds on a history of collaboration between WRI and CCA, including incorporating clean cooking data from Nepal and Kenya into the Energy Access Explorer, a geospatial energy planning platform hosted by WRI. Going forward, this clean cooking partnership will complement and strengthen work in Kenya, Nepal and other countries in sub–Saharan Africa and Asia, supporting local partners and governments to advance forest protection, landscape restoration and healthy cities, as well as enhancing global initiatives on energy access, sustainable food systems and youth engagement.
Wanjira Mathai, WRI’s Managing Director for Africa and Global Partnerships, said, “At WRI, we are always looking for practical, locally led solutions to the climate crisis that work for people, nature and climate. This partnership with CCA enables us to work collaboratively to tackle one of the biggest development challenges ever. We are thrilled to combine efforts with CCA to embed clean cooking solutions into our work across energy, cities, vital landscapes and food at WRI.”
Through this partnership, WRI and CCA will develop research and tools and organize events to integrate clean cooking solutions into initiatives related to urban communities, nature-based solutions, food systems and youth engagement. By working together, both organizations aim to create strategies to adopt clean cooking practices to benefit those with the greatest need, while ensuring that nature and ecosystems otherwise polluted by traditional cooking practices are preserved and even restored.
Dymphna van der Lans, CCA’s CEO, said, “By partnering with WRI, we can embed clean cooking in ways that will help people and ecosystems flourish. This type of cross-cutting and systemic collaboration is essential for large-scale, long term clean cooking transitions, and I hope that our partnership will inspire others to prioritize clean cooking and secure the financing need for meaningful change.”
