Beyond the Stove: Clean Cooking’s Next Challenge Is Energy Security

By Dr. Simon Batchelor OBE (Gamos Ltd. / Loughborough University).

“Clean cooking is generally overlooked.”

It was an apt opening observation from Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) for the High-level Virtual Event on Clean Cooking in Africa. For decades, cooking has been the poor relation of energy policy: essential to billions of people, yet largely absent from discussions about electricity systems, energy security and economic development.

That may finally be changing.

Two high-level meetings this week, one led by the IEA and the other by UN-Energy, suggest that clean cooking has maybe entered a new phase. Political leaders, multilateral agencies, development banks and international organisations are no longer debating whether cooking matters. They are beginning to define who does what.

Perhaps, more importantly, they are building an ecosystem.

The IEA has emerged as the sector’s political accelerator. Since the Paris Clean Cooking Summit it has tracked commitments, mobilised finance, monitored delivery and increasingly positioned clean cooking as a mainstream energy issue rather than a specialist development concern. As Birol summarised, the IEA now seeks to “raise awareness… look at the data… raise money… and look after the security of LPG.”

That is a remarkably broad portfolio for an organisation once known primarily for analysing oil markets.

At this July 2026 virtual meeting, the IEA announced a further US$900 million in commitments for clean cooking, adding to the US$2.2 billion already mobilised. More than 120 new clean cooking policies have been developed across Africa, while access has accelerated significantly. Much of that progress has been driven by one fuel: LPG.

That should surprise nobody. Nearly 900 million Africans still rely on traditional cooking fuels, and more than 850,000 premature deaths each year are attributed to household air pollution across the continent. Against that backdrop, LPG is an obvious bridge technology. It is already a globally traded fuel, familiar to consumers, capable of rapid deployment and able to deliver immediate health benefits. Few would argue with that urgency.

There was, however, one memorable moment during the week’s discussions. Fatih Birol referred to households using “primitive” cooking technologies, only to be gently corrected by Kenya’s President William Ruto, who suggested “traditional” was the more appropriate term. It was a small exchange, but a useful reminder that the challenge is not simply technological, it is also cultural and political. 😊

Yet one of the most interesting moments of the week was not the announcement of new finance. It was the announcement of a new programme on LPG security. The juxtaposition was striking. The same meeting that celebrated hundreds of millions of dollars of additional investment in LPG also acknowledged the growing fragility of the global LPG market. The reason was obvious.

Only weeks ago, the world watched events unfold around the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of globally traded oil and a substantial share of internationally traded LPG passes. Although the waterway ultimately remained open, the crisis was another reminder that household cooking in Africa and Asia can be influenced by geopolitical events thousands of kilometres away.

Energy security, it turns out, applies just as much to kitchens as it does to power stations.

Indeed, the IEA’s own analysis estimates that the recent LPG price spike increased average household fuel expenditure by around one percentage point of income across the billions of people already using LPG. One percentage point may appear modest in richer economies. For poorer households living close to subsistence, it represents a significant erosion of affordability and increases the temptation to return to biomass.

This is not an abstract concern.  India and Indonesia deserve enormous credit for transforming access to clean cooking over the past decade through ambitious LPG programmes. Yet both now find themselves periodically wrestling with the consequences of volatile international LPG prices. Governments face rising subsidy bills, households face higher fuel costs and national budgets become increasingly exposed to international commodity markets.

Africa would be wise to study both the successes and the vulnerabilities of those experiences.

The irony became even more striking when the United States Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, described America’s shale revolution as the foundation of US energy security while promising continued exports of LPG to Africa and Asia.

From Washington’s perspective, both statements are entirely consistent. Domestic shale production has transformed America from a major importer into one of the world’s largest exporters of LPG. American producers, backed by decades of investment, healthy profits and world-class logistics, are well placed to expand supply. It is therefore unsurprising that much of the newly announced investment naturally flows towards LPG infrastructure and supply chains. The global oil and gas industry already possesses the capital, engineering capability and commercial networks needed to scale quickly.

But Africa’s perspective is necessarily different.

America’s energy security rests upon producing fuel.

Africa’s, under this model, increasingly depends upon importing it.

There is nothing inherently wrong with international fuel trade. Africa will almost certainly require imported LPG for many years to come. But dependence should not be confused with resilience. Import terminals, storage facilities, cylinder manufacturing, distribution companies and subsidy systems are all long-lived investments. They create markets, industries and political constituencies.

However, bridges have a habit of becoming destinations. The challenge, therefore, is not deciding whether LPG is the right solution today. It almost certainly is for millions of households. The challenge is ensuring that today’s bridge does not quietly become tomorrow’s lock-in.

The week’s second meeting, convened through UN-Energy, offered a useful counterpoint. While the IEA meeting projected confidence and delivery, the UN discussion was more reflective. Participants repeatedly returned to one deceptively simple question:

“What can the UN do that no one else can do?”

Several speakers argued that countries do not make separate decisions about clean cooking, electricity, critical minerals or digitalisation. They make integrated choices. As one participant put it, governments are “weighing out the decisions.”

That observation may prove more important than it first appears. It is also where the Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme has quietly carved out a distinctive role.

Unlike many clean cooking initiatives, MECS has never viewed cooking simply as a stove problem. Its central argument has always been that cooking sits at the intersection of electricity planning, utility business models, appliance innovation, consumer finance, carbon markets and national energy policy. Our own Prof Ed Brown, speaks in this video about his role (on LinkedIn).

That distinction becomes increasingly important as Mission 300 gathers momentum.

Mission 300 is, fundamentally, an electricity programme. It seeks to connect 300 million Africans to reliable electricity, expand generation, strengthen utilities and mobilise investment in modern power systems. Increasingly, leaders recognise that clean cooking must become part of that conversation. As Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre argued, “Energy Compacts under Mission 300 should clearly prioritise clean cooking.”

For MECS, that represents more than an implementation opportunity. It represents a long-term vision. If Mission 300 succeeds, African countries will possess larger grids, greater renewable generation, more flexible electricity systems and utilities actively seeking productive demand. In that world, electric cooking ceases to be simply another clean cooking technology. It becomes a way of cooking increasingly with energy generated within Africa itself.

That is fundamentally different from importing fuel indefinitely.

The choice, therefore, is not between LPG and electricity.

It is between viewing LPG as a destination or treating it as a transition.

This is why the emerging ecosystem matters.

The IEA is providing political leadership and immediate momentum. The African Union is strengthening African ownership and industrial ambition. The United Nations continues to connect cooking to health, gender and sustainable development. Mission 300 is reshaping Africa’s electricity infrastructure.

MECS sits at the intersection of all four.

Its role is not to argue against LPG, nor to dismiss the remarkable achievements being made today. Quite the opposite. Without rapid progress on clean cooking, millions more lives will be unnecessarily lost. But MECS asks an additional question. What should Africa’s cooking energy system look like in 2050? That question deserves as much attention as the next five years.

Because success should ultimately be measured not only by cleaner kitchens, but by greater energy security and sovereignty.  Escaping dependence on biomass is essential. Replacing one dependence with another would be a less complete victory.

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AI disclaimer: I listened to each meeting as a whole and formed my own opinions.  AI was given the full transcripts of the meetings and asked for headlines and notable quotes. I then interrogated the answers, and drafted a blog. AI was used to tidy the grammar.

Image credit: AI generated from prompt by S. Batchelor, 2026.