A new episode of the IEA podcast Everything Energy looks at efforts to increase access to clean cooking solutions in Africa, which offer the potential to tackle a major energy, health and development issue that afflicts around 1 billion Africans today.
Today, four in five families in African countries cook their daily meals with fuels such as wood, charcoal, kerosene and waste over open fires or basic stoves. This contributes to over 800,000 premature deaths each year due to household air pollution – mostly among women and children. It also has significant impacts on gender equality and economic opportunity.
In the episode, which is now available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, we hear from Syrine El Abed, IEA Africa Programme Officer, and Dan Wetzel, Head of the IEA’s Tracking Sustainable Transitions Unit. They explain what a lack of clean cooking supplies means in practice, highlighting what the latest data tells us about the situation. They also discuss what more can be done to close the access gap – and why the energy sector is key to solving this challenge.
The IEA launched the new version of the Everything Energy podcast earlier this year. The series offers insights on issues at the centre of the global energy dialogue through conversations with IEA experts.
Previous episodes of the podcast cover why global energy demand is surging, the vast potential of geothermal energy, the comeback of nuclear energy, how energy will shape the future of AI (and vice versa), what’s next for electric cars and trucks, key energy investment trends, the forces shaping oil markets, batteries, and the air conditioning boom.