- Date
- 27th July 2022
- Categories
- General
By Solomon Atepo (Energising Development (EnDev) Uganda).
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (MEMD) in partnership with Energising Development (EnDev) Uganda and the Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme launched the Innovation Window eCooking Pilot Project on 29 June 2022 in Kampala, Uganda at Hotel Africana. This was during the eCooking stakeholder workshop whose main objective was to bring together key eCooking stakeholders to share knowledge and experiences for the development of the eCooking value chain for Uganda and obtain strategic inputs into on-going activities and approaches on eCooking.
Amidst the different challenges of the cooking sector Uganda, the Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development is intending to partner with MECS to develop an eCooking strategy to overcome existing barriers to eCooking whilst taking advantage of the different opportunities through partnerships with civil society organisations and the private sector to stimulate investments and establish mechanisms for increasing adoption of eCooking technologies. The goal of the eCooking pilot project is to expand market intelligence on eCooking, and establish and strengthen supply chain networks to facilitate access to at least 400 electric pressure cookers (EPCs) for households in Uganda.
In line with the ongoing initiatives of the pilot, the Government of Uganda in partnership with the World Bank through Energy Access Scale-Up Program (EASP) through Uganda Energy Credit and Capitalisation Company (UECCC) will be piloting a Clean Cooking Fund in 2022/2023 financial year to finance clean cooking solutions that targets supporting over 1.66 million people (353,000 households) with clean cooking technologies. Additionally, Umeme Ltd, with Support from MECS will also be piloting and scaling the distribution of EPCs across 900,000 Umeme customers in Kampala. All the different stakeholders placed emphasis on promoting more collaborations among different government agencies, financial institutions, civil society organisations and private sector actors to encourage synergies in bridging funding, awareness, innovation, and access gaps that are necessary for promoting modern cooking technologies such as EPCs.
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Featured image, top: Electric pressure cooker demonstration at the stakeholder workshop (image credit: GIZ).