1. On 14 May, we met in Paris at the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, co-chaired by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania H.E. Samia Suluhu Hassan, the Prime Minister of Norway H.E. Jonas Gahr Støre, the President of the African Development Bank Group Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, and the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Dr. Fatih Birol.
2. The Summit organised by the IEA, brought together over 1000 delegates, from governments, private sector, development partners, international organisations, philanthropies, and civil society, all driven by the shared objective of making 2024 a pivotal year for achieving universal access to clean cooking. It marked the largest-ever gathering exclusively on clean cooking, drawing participation from 55 countries, represented by 4 Head of Government and 23 Ministers. At the Summit, the significant efforts made to date were acknowledged, but it is evident that much more needs to be done.
3. We pledge to make clean cooking a priority and enhance our efforts toward achieving universal access for all, recognising its essential role in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7. Universal clean cooking access was underlined once more by African leaders as a priority issue for collective action for African governments and the international community on climate and energy in the context of the Nairobi Declaration.
4. While working to achieve this goal, we affirm that our primary focus should be on ensuring affordable access in a timely manner to cleaner and modern cooking solutions, which can deliver benefits in terms of health, productivity, gender equality, forest preservation, biodiversity, and emissions reductions. We affirm that the strategies taken by countries to advance clean cooking will depend on local context, and that each country has sovereignty to shape this agenda in a manner consistent with people-centred energy transitions.
5. We affirm the importance of a coordinated approach, making progress within three critical pillars: financing, policies, and partnerships. To that end, we applaud the IEA's efforts in bringing forward the announcement of USD 2.2 billion in public and private sector funding, financing and investment for clean cooking at the Summit.
6. We stress the importance of attracting private sector investments in achieving universal access to clean cooking and recognise that concessional finance plays a catalytic role in scaling up private sector investments. To that end, we acknowledge the close connection to advancing clean cooking to the broader calls for enhancing development finance within the Paris Pact for People and Planet. We commend the substantial investments in clean cooking announced at the Summit and welcome this increase in private sector participation, which can be a potential game changer in our efforts to achieve clean cooking access for all.
7. The financial support committed at the Summit contributes to the needed upfront investment costs estimated by the IEA to be USD 4 billion annually from now to 2030 to reach universal access to clean cooking in sub-Saharan Africa. We call upon others to join this effort and allocate additional resources to clean cooking, recognising the need for diverse sources of financing - concessional, commercial, philanthropic, and public - and the importance of effective, transparent, and timely delivery through proven financing channels and facilities.
8. We also affirm the criticality of financial measures that help manage affordability for consumers, recognising that past efforts of extending energy access have all depended on shielding consumers from the full cost of that access initially. We affirm affordability support should be targeted to those most in need, noting the importance of this support reaching women to ensure results, and that support should be progressively reduced as the affordability gap decreases. We also recognise the particular importance clean cooking access can play in the context of displacement settlements and other marginalised communities.
9. We acknowledge the significant role that carbon credits and climate finance have already played in scaling clean cooking efforts, recognising the potential for further expansion of this support, while ensuring that benefits are shared appropriately among actors. Commitments to buy carbon credits derived from clean cooking to satisfy nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and other emissions reductions objectives could play a crucial role in funding higher tier clean cooking access, but should be met using high integrity of credits, and underlying carbon credit quality concerns must be addressed. We applaud the efforts to address underlying carbon credit quality concerns, including new crediting methodologies currently under development. We also acknowledge the Clean Cooking Alliance-led Responsible Carbon Finance for Clean Cooking Initiative and its role in building consensus around principles for integrity, transparency, fairness, and sustainability of clean cooking carbon credits.
10. Success stories such as in Brazil, India and Indonesia demonstrate that rapid progress is achievable if there is strong political will. We acknowledge the African leaders who have already made clean cooking a top priority and joined the Summit, with special thanks to President Samia Suluhu Hassan of the United Republic of Tanzania for championing clean cooking as a pan African priority through her African Women's Clean Cooking Support Programme launched at COP28.
11. Given the crucial roles of enabling policies, we encourage greater exchanges to share experiences and best practices. We commend the African governments who publicly committed to making clean cooking a priority national issue and are taking steps to implement proven policy measures in their country to usher greater progress. We call upon other African governments to follow this example.
12. Furthermore, we applaud the ongoing efforts of a diverse coalition of stakeholders - from governments, financiers, and industry to international organisations, development partners, and civil society. By fostering greater collaboration as a global community, we will make significant strides in addressing this issue. We pledge to expand this coalition and enhancing the coordination of our activities to ensure the efficient utilisation of resources.
13. We declare clean cooking as a critical priority and pledge to take concrete steps towards advancing the clean cooking agenda, through action on the ground, raising awareness, and fostering greater collaboration among the key stakeholders. We welcome the commitment by the G7 Ministers of Climate, Energy, and the Environment to promote clean cooking technologies, the announcement by Brazil that clean cooking will feature prominently in its G20 agenda, and the recognition of this as one of the priority issues by the Azerbaijan COP29 Presidency. The upcoming events represent significant milestones for us to make progress on the global clean cooking agenda.
14. Clean cooking is a solvable development challenge that will have a positive impact on the lives of millions of the poorest people on earth, predominately for those in Sub‑Saharan Africa. We welcome others to join us in elevating the importance of the clean cooking agenda and bringing to bear additional resources for this effort. We call for the swift implementation of the commitments made at the Summit, and the establishment of a follow-up mechanism to take stock of progress against those commitments. We also encourage others to join this noble cause, bringing new support and commitments, so we can, together, resolve one of the great, but imminently addressable, injustices enduring in the world today.
