On May 14, 2024, Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio delivered a keynote speech at the Clean Cooking in Africa Summit held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. He highlighted the urgent need for progress in clean cooking practices across Africa, noting that nearly four out of five Africans still rely on open fires and traditional stoves using polluting fuels.
President Bio emphasized the severe consequences of this lack of access to clean cooking methods. These include detrimental impacts on health, climate, and gender equality. In Africa alone, it contributes to nearly half a million premature deaths of women and children annually.
The President further stated that the primary goal of the summit, organized by the International Energy Agency (IEA), is to elevate clean cooking on the global agenda. The aim is to mobilize financial commitments and develop a roadmap of concrete action-oriented strategies.
President Bio also praised the IEA and the Africa Development Bank Group for convening the summit. He expressed concern over past experiences revealing that clean cooking was often overlooked in energy access and electrification planning processes across various countries.
"Today’s Summit is a call to action," he said. "A plea to prioritize this crucial issue for the betterment of our people and our planet." He shared alarming statistics from Sierra Leone's 2023 SDG Tracking Report which showed that only 0.8% of Sierra Leone’s population had access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking in 2021.
He further detailed how this lack of access significantly affects Sierra Leone’s economy with estimated annual costs due to inaction totaling US$4.7 billion. These costs arise from women’s lost productivity (US$1.4 billion), health issues (US$3.2 billion), and climate change impacts (US$0.2 billion).
In his opening remarks as Chairman of the plenary and Executive Director of IEA, Dr Fatih Birol expressed pleasure at having global leaders come together to discuss ways of mitigating the effects and lack of access to clean cooking in Africa.
President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina, also spoke at the summit. He shared his personal experience as a child who suffered from the effect of the lack of access to clean cooking. He noted that the summit was very timely and it would help mitigate the untimely deaths caused by this issue in Africa.
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