Kenya leads Africa’s clean cooking push with $600M investment drive
At the United Nations in New York, Nairobi signals it is done waiting for the world to solve an energy crisis that kills more Africans than malaria
By David Kimani
Kenya yesterday co-hosted with Norway the first high-level clean cooking event on the African continent’s behalf, held on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, unveiling a KSh600 million investment opportunity targeting schools, healthcare facilities, and correctional institutions. The event marks a decisive shift in how Africa frames the clean cooking deficit — not as a humanitarian concern but as a structural infrastructure gap demanding serious capital mobilisation. Millions of African households still cook over open fires and polluting stoves, a reality that drives preventable deaths, deepens poverty, and stalls the continent’s green transition. “Clean cooking is energy infrastructure, vital to public health, economic opportunity and Africa’s green transition,” Kenya’s delegation stated, setting the tone for discussions that centred on local-currency financing, guarantees, and investment instruments capable of converting latent demand into bankable projects. Norway’s co-sponsorship lent the event significant diplomatic weight. The New York gathering serves as a curtain-raiser for the Second Africa Clean Cooking Summit, scheduled for Nairobi in January, where Kenya intends to turn yesterday’s political commitments into concrete funding agreements.
Some of the moments as captured in pictures
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