- Date
- 3rd September 2025
- Categories
- Clean Cooking
By Dr. Anna Clements (Gamos Ltd.).
From 19–21st August 2025, government officials, development partners, private sector representatives and other non-government stakeholders gathered at the NCVO Society Building in London for the Tanzania Clean Cooking Retreat. The three-day event was hosted by the Government of Tanzania, Africa Climate and Energy Nexus (AfCEN), and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). Its goal was to define a clear pathway toward Tanzania’s ambition of achieving 80% clean cooking access by 2034.
Many participants attended in person, while others joined online. The Tanzanian government was well represented by the Ministry of Energy, including the Clean Cooking Unit, REA, TANESCO, the Ministry of Finance, and NCMC. MECS was represented by Simon Batchelor, Ed Brown, Anna Clements, and Nyamolo Abagi from CLASP. Other participants included: UPEnergy, Burn, SESCOM, Smart Pika, Group SEB, Koko Networks, FCDO, EU, GiZ/EnDEV, Enabel, UNIDO, SEforALL, WFP, ICLEI, ESMAP, IEA, AfDB, CCA, Bankers without Boundaries, Quadrature Climate Foundation, FSD Africa, Spark + Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Climateworks, Bloomberg Philanthropy, Lightrock, CRDB, Verst Carbon, Bayes Consulting, TaTEDO-SESO, TZ LPG Association, Oryx.
The retreat featured wide-ranging discussions on key topics, such as the target technology mix, financing the transition, and exploring how non-government stakeholders can most effectively engage with the government as it rolls out the implementation of the National Clean Cooking Strategy (2024-2034). We were delighted to be able to connect with many MECS partners and collaborators we work with on the TZ eCooking Scale and Support Programme, including the Clean Cooking Unit in the Ministry of Energy and TANESCO.
Day 1 was all about framing the challenge and exploring how to determine the technology mix Tanzania wants to aim for. Joseph Nganga described clean cooking as “the difference between surviving and thriving,” and Zeph Kivungi (CIFF) highlighted its centrality to women’s and children’s wellbeing, describing biomass stoves as “ancient technologies.” We heard from the Ministry of Energy about the current status of clean cooking in Tanzania – the latest baseline figures (soon to be published) are that 20.3% of Tanzanians have access to clean cooking.
This set the stage for discussions on a target fuel mix, weighing up the costs of infrastructure, energy security, affordability for the household, among many other factors. Tanzania has a multi-fuel strategy, and there was consideration about what it would mean to take advantage of Tanzania’s existing electricity infrastructure, the connections planned through Mission 300, the extraction of LNG, the role of imported LPG, and where ICS comes in.
The second part of day 1 and all of day 2 were focused on financing. There were deep-dives into carbon finance, on-bill financing, equity, RBF and grants (see MECS contribution, on the opportunity for carbon finance through Article 6, here). Presenters pointed to the need for clear and consistent carbon credit policy, and the opportunity for the Government to support through tax relief, on a timescale that would give investors confidence. We were all really interested to hear TANESCO share that they launched a scheme on 14th August for staff to pay for eCooking appliances through their pay checks, spreading the upfront cost over a number of months – and nearly 1000 units were taken within a week.
Building on this, we went into detail of how on-bill financing could work in Tanzania (pilots planned for later in August), and a vision was shared and discussed for a large-scale blended finance approach. Such a model, framed by the Government, would involve from commercial banks, international lenders, and carbon finance, to enable millions of households or institutions to be able to acquire digitally enabled eCooking appliances on credit, and repay through their electricity bills – supporting Tanzania to use its current surplus of electricity generation and improve the profitability of TANESCO. We heard from the Ministry of Finance about how allocations are made and how a large-scale clean cooking effort would fit into the fiscal policy of the country.
Finally, day 3 explored governance, and the Clean Cooking Unit explained the three-tiered governance structure Tanzania has in place for clean cooking coordination – Technical, Steering, and Ministerial committees. Desk officers in all government authorities, down to regional and local levels ensure clean cooking is embedded throughout the Tanzanian government. While the government has done a tremendous job putting in these internal structures, they directly asked participants to consider how they, as non-government stakeholders, could engage with the government. Before the end of the retreat, a way forward had been proposed to coordinate a non-government actor group to engage more systematically with the Technical committee.
The 3-day retreat set the stage for clean cooking to feature prominently at the Africa Climate Summit. With on-bill financing pilots, blended finance plans, and a coordinated means for engagement between government and non-government engagement, momentum is building and we cannot wait to see where the next few months take Tanzania!
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Featured image credit: AfCEN and CIFF.