Market News

BY Antony Sguazzin and Nayla Razzouk, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- The African Development Bank, the continent’s biggest multilateral lender, will allocate $2 billion to promote clean cooking in Africa over the next decade.

The pledge amounts to 20% of the lender’s annual spending on energy, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina said at an International Energy Agency conference on clean cooking in Africa on Tuesday in Paris.

Earlier, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said his country will contribute $50 million to the initiative, while Marcos Sefcovic, executive vice president of the European Green Deal, said the European Union will provide €400 million ($431 million).

Governments, companies and institutions will announce additional financial commitments — the basis for the estimated $4 billion needed annually until 2030 — at the summit, Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said in an interview. The money will provide clean-cooking technologies and fuels.

Cooking over open fires and using basic stoves that burn charcoal and wood leads to the death of about 600,000 Africans annually, adds to carbon emissions and leads to deforestation.

While there has been some improvement in the use of clean-cooking technology in Asian countries, progress in Africa has been lagging. The cost of inaction in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at $330 billion annually because of the impact on health and the climate, according to a recent World Bank report. 

Separately, the World Liquid Gas Association said Equinor ASA and TotalEnergies SE will be part of a task force that will promote access to liquefied petroleum gas for cooking in Africa and will present a plan to the COP29 international climate summit later this year.

Petredec Ltd., Oryx Energies SA and S&P Global Inc. will also form part of the task force.

(Updates with European Union contribution in second paragraph, LPG initiative from fifth)