Powering Change: Unlocking Climate Finance to Scale eCooking for Refugee and Informal Communities in Kampala, Uganda

By Peter M. Mwesiga, University of Sussex, and Xantum Consulting Ltd.

List of key contributors: Professor Matthew Leach, Dr Samir Thapa, and Dr Yesmeen Khalifa, (MECS- Loughborough University), Professor Tim Foxon, SPRU, University of Sussex

While 60% of Kampala’s population lives in informal settlements, the city hosts around 300,000 of the 1.5 million refugees in Uganda from neighbouring countries. However, most of these communities still lack access to clean and modern cooking energy options, including eCooking due to high tariffs, unfavourable policies, costly connection procedures, expensive appliances, and unsafe wiring. As a result, cooking remains largely dependent on traditional biomass fuels such as charcoal and firewood.

At the same time, only about 1.4% of Ugandans have access to modern energy cooking technologies such as electricity and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), while 21% still depend on charcoal and 73% on firewood as their primary cooking fuels. In urban areas, only 4% of the people use electricity for cooking, increasing slightly to 6% in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

When the President issued a directive banning the charcoal trade from northern Uganda on 24th May 2023, charcoal, previously a key cooking fuel for many cities, including the capital Kampala—rose sharply in price, increasing vulnerabilities among urban refugees and residents of informal settlements.

The Government of Uganda aims to increase eCooking adoption from 1.4% to 18% by 2030, in collaboration with development partners. For-example, the UK government, has committed $5 million to support this national program and catalyse climate financing for eCooking, with refugees and residents of informal settlements identified as key beneficiaries. Several important milestones have been achieved both internationally and domestically to leverage climate finance opportunities for scaling eCooking and enhancing the sustainability and predictability of funding. Notably, at COP29, the UN endorsed the International Carbon Market Standards to support such initiatives.

Recognising that, despite these developments, urban refugees and residents of informal settlements continue to face distinct challenges that hinder their transition to eCooking—and that climate finance deployment in Uganda remains at an early stage—this study set out to examine how climate finance can be leveraged to scale eCooking adoption in such contexts within Kampala, Uganda.

Using expert interviews and existing literature, and guided by a Multilevel Perspective Framework, the study examined the opportunities, challenges, and policy support needed at different governance levels to deploy climate finance. It specifically sought to address the three research questions outlined below:

1. What climate finance opportunities can support the scale-up of eCooking in Kampala’s refugee and informal settlements?
2. What barriers must be addressed to expand eCooking adoption in these settings through climate finance?
3. Which policy instruments can facilitate eCooking scale-up among refugees and informal settlement dwellers using climate finance?

The study finds that eCooking and climate finance access in Kampala’s informal settlements face structural barriers across system levels, compounded by informality. Key opportunities lie in mobilising climate and carbon finance, leveraging global funds, and strengthening national and community institutions. Persistent challenges—high registration costs, limited technical capacity, unclear policies, exclusion from finance, and poor infrastructure—impede uptake.

The study outlines three complementary pathways: a government-led approach for policy alignment, market aggregation to lower entry barriers, and community hubs to foster trust and household adoption.