Sustainable Development Goal 7

Updated data this year show that the number of people without clean cooking facilities has been declining gradually. Over 450 million people have gained access to clean cooking since 2010 in India and China, as a result of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) programmes and clean air policies. The challenge in sub-Saharan Africa remains acute, with a deteriorating picture: only 17% of the population have clean cooking access. In total, more than 2.6 billion people worldwide still do not have access, and household air pollution, mostly from cooking smoke, is linked to around 2.5 million premature deaths annually.

Above 2.6 billion people lack access to clean cooking facilities, relying instead on solid biomass, kerosene or coal as their primary cooking fuel. In the past, progress has been very limited compared electricity access. However, latest data show a gradual decline worldwide in the number of people without clean cooking access.

Developing Asia is home to around 65% of the global population without access, with 1.7 billion people lacking clean cooking facilities. Seven-times more people lack clean cooking access than electricity in this region. However, the latest data shows promising signs, with over 600 million people gaining access since 2010. In India and China, access rates have reached 49% and 71% respectively in 2018.

In India, national data show a reduction of 10 percentage points in the share of population relying on biomass and kerosene between 2010 and 2015, with most now using LPG instead. Since 2015, government figures indicate that an additional 80 million free LPG connections have been provided to poor households via the high-profile PMUY scheme. In China, natural gas infrastructure development is helping to reduce the use of biomass and kerosene. Several other countries in developing Asia are also making efforts to promote clean cooking, employing different methods depending on the national context.

As our latest analyses in the Africa Energy Outlook 2019 show, the lack of access to clean cooking remains very acute in sub-Saharan Africa with access increasing only slightly from 15% in 2015 to 17% in 2018. Since 2015, only 25 million people have gained access to clean cooking in the region, meaning that the number of people without access increased to over 900 million in 2018 as population growth outpaced provision efforts. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where the number of those without access continues to rise significantly, highlighting the urgent need for action.

The vast majority of people in sub-Saharan Africa thus rely on gathering biomass for cooking, in particular in rural areas, which dramatically damages health and impairs productivity improvements. Almost 490 000 premature deaths per year are related to household air pollution from the lack of access to clean cooking facilities, with women and children the worst affected. Forest degradation, sometimes leading to deforestation, is another serious consequence of the unsustainable harvesting of fuelwood.

Progress has been registered in a handful of countries though: West Africa has made the fastest progress since 2010, with almost 3 million people gaining access each year, followed by East Africa with nearly 1.5 million people per year. After an important support from the government, in Ghana 24% of the population relied on LPG in 2018; the government further intends to distribute LPG cookstoves within all districts by 2020 through the LPG Promotion Programme launched in 2017. In Côte d’Ivoire, LPG is now used by almost 55% of urban households; however, nearly 95% of rural households still rely on gathered fuelwood burnt in inefficient traditional stoves. In Ethiopia, gains in electricity access are beginning to make an impact, with 32% of urban households cooking with electricity in 2018 compared with only 6% in 2011. In South Africa, electricity is the main clean cooking fuel, used by more than 80% of households nationally.