High-level Event on Clean Cooking

Good afternoon, colleagues. We've had a few additional people join at the last minute. I'd like to remind everyone that we can accommodate at the beginning of the session, delegates at the table plus one. If you are an additional delegate that's been granted, if you'd be able to make your seat available, we'll have some additional people that will need to be there, and we'll allow you in as soon as possible. Thank you so much for joining. May I please ask everyone to begin to take your seats to make sure that we can welcome His Excellency, the President of Kenya, who is approaching the room now. Thank you very much and thank you for joining us here today.

May I please ask all delegates to take their seats. Everyone will need a seat as a matter of security. So please take your seats promptly as we will begin shortly. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Excellencies, dear colleagues, we are starting in a minute, please. Excellencies, dear colleagues, it's a great pleasure to welcome you all here at the United Nations to discuss, in my view, one of the most important issues that the humanity is facing today, which is the access to clean cooking. May I thank, first of all, my co-host, President Ruto. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for all your support and efforts here. So much appreciated. And also the Norwegian government represented here with the Minister of International Development, Her Excellency, Aukrust. I recently talked with Prime Minister Sture. He cannot be with us here, but his heart is here. Dear colleagues, I am also proud that for the first time in the UNGA meeting, this issue has a dedicated event. I am very happy and I am very proud of it. And I look forward to continuing this partnership with President Ruto, Prime Minister Sture, and with the US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, together with African Union, African Development Bank, for the second Clean Cooking Summit in Africa in Nairobi, 27th and 28th of January. Dear colleagues, at the IEA, we started to work on clean cooking some 25 years ago. 25 years ago, we were the first ones who looked at the numbers. How many people have no access to clean cooking in Africa, but also in the other part of the world? And we have this, we follow this every year in our flagship publication, World Energy Outlook, and track the developments year by year, what happens in which country, whether or not this issue has been addressed. And in the year 2024, two years ago, we had the first summit, Clean Cooking Summit in Paris. And this was a big success, but I am sure the second one in Nairobi will be even a bigger success under your leadership, Mr. President. So, dear colleagues, why have we worked on this issue 25 years ago? Because, in my view, as I said, this is one of the biggest tragedies of humankind. As we speak today, this year, some 850,000 people die prematurely because of not having access to clean cooking, using traditional fuels such as wood, agricultural waste, animal waste, which in turn creates major respiratory diseases, 850,000 people. And to solve this issue, according to IES analysis, requires only, I would say only, $2 billion per year. which is compared to many other expansions we have in the world and compared to what we will get in return, this is nothing, $2 billion. And this can be done to address this issue. We do not need to discover new technologies, have new findings. Many of the existing solutions are ready to address this issue. And the main thing here comes as LPG, which is readily available around the world, but also electric cooking and others. When we hold the first meeting in Paris, there, thanks to the great work that our colleagues at the IEA have done, one year, we raised $2.2 billion US of pledges. It's a big money, 2.2 billion, and President Macron invited us to Elysee, to all the heads of states and us to congregate us in Elysee there. And both in Elysee, but also in front of the more than 1,000 people in Paris, participants, I said, "I promise that we are going to say what happened to this money. We are going to track this money," and we still, we do it. And our tracking shows that up to now of this 2.2 billion, 740 million has been dispersed across 28 African countries. And they fund real projects. For example, I see LPG terminals and electric cooking in Kenya, new stove factories in Nigeria, fuel storage and stove equipment in Tanzania, and stove deployment in Senegal. And here we are, of course, all of us are looking forward to Nairobi. And we are already working with our colleagues from Kenya and others and collecting pledges. I can tell you that as of today, Mr. President, we have already put together 900 million already has been pledged from different governments, institutions, companies, and others. So these are our activities and I'm very happy that in the meantime an organization which focus on the grant to make the things happen, Clean Cooking Alliance, found a new home at the International Energy Agency under our umbrella. And furthermore, In January, before going to Nairobi, in Davos, in World Economic Forum, some of you know that I am the chair of the Davos Energy Board. I am going to bring this issue to Davos World Economic Forum as a key humanitarian issue. So today, dear colleagues, we have an incredible good participation from different parts of the globe. And we hope that we can discuss what we expect from January's summit in Nairobi under the able leadership of Mr. President. And I can assure you that, dear colleagues, we look at the numbers, we look at the technologies, we look at the challenge. This can be solvable. easily, no big money, no new technology, it needs political will. And as such, I think our meeting in Nairobi will be very important. So, thank you very much for your attention. And now, I am passing the floor to Mr. President. Over to you, sir.

Thank you. Your Excellencies, colleagues, welcome to this very important meeting, historic, as was said by my colleague here, the first high-level event on clean cooking in Africa to be held during the United Nations General Assembly. Today's gathering reflects the momentum we set in motion when we met virtually in July this year. At that meeting, we welcomed nearly 900 million US dollars in new financial commitments marked the association of Clean Cooking Alliance with the International Energy Agency and agreed to sustain the political momentum behind this agenda. Today, we carry that commitment forward from momentum to action and from ambition to delivery. We are especially grateful to the Kingdom of Norway for its steadfast partnership and for co-hosting this event. We also commend the International Energy Agency, and particularly my good friend, Dr. Birol, who has become a tireless champion and a driving force for this agenda. Kenya is proud to be part of this coalition. For millions of African households, cooking is the single largest use of energy. Across much of our continent, the kitchen is where the energy transition enters daily lives for nearly 1 billion people. Three in four people in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to clean cooking. In Kenya alone, households, air pollution contributes to premature deaths every year, disproportionately affecting women and children. And across Africa, the annual toll exceed 500,000 lives. But the consequences go beyond health. Reliance on polluting cooking fuels drives deforestation, increases greenhouse gas emissions, consumes time that could otherwise be spent on education and economic activity and constrains opportunity. After decades of advocacy and action, the world now accepts that cooking with wood and charcoal can kill, that collecting and using these fuels costs women and girls precious hours every day, and that this is an injustice we have the means to end. That case was made by women, made by health ministers, scientists, advocates, and many of you in this room. That case, in my estimation, has now been won. Today, I want to make the argument we have yet to win. Clean cooking is energy infrastructure. It belongs in the plans of every ministry and institution that shapes how our economies grow. And the challenge does not end at the household poor. It will not be solved while our schools, hospitals, correctional facilities, and other public institutions remain heavily dependent on polluting fuels. Let me make three points about how we deliver this transition. First, There will be no single pathway. Different countries will move at different speeds and through different technologies, reflecting their resources, markets, infrastructure, and consumer needs. Our task is to accelerate the deployment of all viable technologies towards cooking that is cleaner, affordable, reliable, and accessible. Second, Clean cooking must become part of the electrification agenda. Electric cooking can turn a basic electricity connection into meaningful and productive demand. It can strengthen utility revenues, improve the economics of investment in generation and networks, and ensure that electrification delivers greater value to households. The COP23 president, Murat Korum, who I am told is here with us today, and I hope he's somewhere in the room, has proposed increasing electricity's share of global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035. We should arrive at COP31 with clean cooking firmly embedded in that electrification and efficiency agenda. And we should use our accelerated partnership for renewables in Africa as a vehicle for rapid delivery. Third, the investment required is small in relation to the opportunity, as was said ably by Dr. Birol here. Consider the arithmetic, according to IEA, Achieving universal clean cooking access in Africa requires approximately $2 billion annually through 2040. Consider the other statistics. The world invests more than $3 billion in energy every year. In other words, Africa's cooking transition would require less than one-tenth of 1% of annual global energy investment. I said one-tenth of 1%. That is why, in the words of Beryl, it's very small compared to the other numbers. The constraint is not simply the availability of capital. Capital is held back because demand is fragmented and too much risk is left with households and small enterprises. Institutional aggregation, local currency financing, guarantees, and result-based funding can help correct that imbalance and turn need into investment demand. And the return over the next 15 years are extraordinary. I'll give you the numbers. 4.7 million premature deaths avoided, 540 million tons of emissions reduced annually by 2040, and 460,000 permanent jobs created. Those jobs matter as much as the fuel. Every clean cooking transition creates a value chain. Fuel production and distribution, appliance manufacturing and assembly, installation and maintenance, retail, and consumer finance. More of that value must be created in where the need is most in Africa. That is why we must bring clean cooking value chains into the project preparation pipeline of the Africa Green Industrialization Initiative so that this transition also becomes an engine of African industrialization and job creation. But we must be candid about the other side of this transition. Millions of people today depend on charcoal and firewood for their livelihoods. A transition that ignores them will not endure. Restraining alternative livelihoods, retraining alternative livelihoods, and a managed face down must therefore be part of the plan, just as they are in any serious industrial transition. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Kenya, like other countries, is pursuing a pragmatic, multi-fuel approach that reflects market realities and consumer preferences. To translate that ambition into investment, we recently launched the Institutional Clean Cooking Investment Pack. It identifies a $600 million investment opportunity across schools, healthcare facilities, and correctional services. We all need to continue building that momentum, strengthening partnerships, mobilizing investment, and moving from commitment to implementation. On 27th and 28th January next year, we will co-host the second Africa Clean Cooking Summit with Norway, the United States, the International Energy Agency, and other partners. I invite you all to Nairobi. When we meet in Nairobi, let each one of us come prepared to point to one concrete step, a policy approved, a procurement launched, financing deployed, an investment committed, or a project advanced. I thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Your leadership is so important in this issue, as we both said, it's one of the biggest injustices in the world today we are facing. May I now turn to Norway, the Minister of International Development, Minister Aukrust. Mr. Minister, the Mr. President mentioned the health impacts and I know that the the your prime minister. Interest in clinical status when he worked with the WHO. So it is great to see you here representing your government, Sir, over to you.

Thank you, President, Excellencies, distinguished guests and colleagues. And also let me start by. Sending the greetings from my Prime Minister, Jonas Gardstoe, who is deeply committed to this initiative. And I'm so glad to be here and to really feel the energy in this totally packed room, which is so much needed because we have already heard the urgency of what we are discussing. Clean cooking is probably one of the most underfunded opportunities in global development and climate policy today. It's an opportunity to improve health, to empower women, to create jobs and to protect nature. I would like to use this opportunity from Norway, but I think from all of us, to really thank President Ruto and his leadership and commitment, and the United States and the International Energy Agency for working closely together with us from the Norwegian government in preparing the second summit on clean cooking in Africa. Two years ago, when we met in Paris, we have since then we have mobilized more than $2 billion for clean cooking and we have seen great progress. New policy is adopted, new partnership is formed, affordability is being overcome. And in some African countries, we have seen clean cooking access rise significantly. This is very encouraging and let's use this as an inspiration to do more and to be more prepared when we meet in Nairobi in January. Let me underline three points. First, clean cooking must become a central pillar of national energy strategies. It's not an add-on. It's not a social program on the margins. It has to be a development priority reflected in national plans, investment frameworks, and public budgets. The transformation from modern energy cannot be complete while billions remain dependent on traditional cooking fuels. Second, Women must be at the center of the solution. Women bear the greatest burden of energy poverty, yet they are also among the strongest agents for change. When women gain access to clean cooking technologies, entire communities benefit. When women entrepreneurs receive financing and support, markets grow faster and progress become more sustainable. Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, it's also the smart thing to do. Third, we must bring together climate finance, development finance, carbon finance and private investments. We need financing at a scale designed to reduce risk, attract capital and accelerate deployment. Therefore, I'm also very glad to see the president of the World Bank, Banga, being among us today. Friends, national leadership must be matched by international partnership. We call upon multilateral institutions to place clean cooking firmly within their energy portfolios. on development partners to expand concessional finance, on businesses and philanthropic foundations to invest in growing clean cooking markets. Since the summit in Paris, the Norwegian government has delivered almost 50 million US dollars to what we promised on clean cooking in Africa, which make Norway one of the leading bilateral supporters of clean cooking on the continent. From the Norwegian government, we will say, and once again here, that we will continue to do our part. The transition to clean cooking is not merely about changing how meals are prepared. It's about improving lives. And it's about ensuring that economic development and climate progress go hand in hand. Let us therefore act with greater urgency, greater ambition, and greater partnership. No woman, man, or child should have to risk their health simply because they are cooking a meal. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Minister, to you and your government and Prime Minister Storey. May I now turn to Mr. Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy of the United States, with many thanks to you, Mr. Secretary, for your great engagement on this issue. Over to you, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Fati. Thank you for your great comments, Minister Okrus. Thank you, President Ruto. I love the words they said, and I agree with all of them. Look, the world has many problems. But very few of those problems can be quantified as causing deaths, annual deaths measured in the millions. That's very few problems. Those are generally public health problems, clear water, endemic and infectious diseases, things we have valiant efforts on and we should continue those. Those are fantastic. We have lesser problems that we spend a lot of effort on and we don't make much progress. What's unique about the clean cooking fuel problem is this is a giant problem. One quarter of humanity. We've heard the numbers about a billion in Africa, about a billion out of Africa. One quarter of humanity have not gotten access to clean cooking fuels that change the lives of all of our ancestors. This is a giant problem. And what else is unique about it? It's an eminently solvable problem. We know how to solve this problem. We have the technologies, we have the materials. It is a business-driven problem. The room today is full of business leaders from the United States and from around the world. We are making progress. Tens of millions of people every year first gain access to clean cooking fuel. I say that's the biggest access in your Rd. from dire poverty. to wealth and prosperity. The biggest single step is gaining access to clean cooking fuels. We know how to do it. Tens of millions of people every year, but why not 100 million? Why not 200 million a year? 200 billion people still lack it. We can do it. We can do it. Clean cooking fuel is not just a public health problem. We talked about the enormous deaths from indoor air pollution. It's not just an energy access problem, but of course it is. The arrival of modern energy over the last 100 to 200 years has more than doubled human life expectancy. But think about that, a quarter of humanity don't have this basic energy service of clean cooking fuels. Beyond being a public health problem and being an energy problem, this is the biggest, largest in numbers of people, women's liberation problem left. One quarter of the women on planet Earth today spend hours a day in risky drudgery to locate fuels, to tend fires, to lean over them. Their children are with them in that. They don't have the same life opportunities of everyone in this room. We together can liberate a billion women. We can save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. We can transform the living conditions of so much of humanity. It is in our hands and the entrepreneurs in Africa, in South Asia, in Latin America's hands. They just need help and a nudge with us to drive this thing. We have a lot of problems in the world, we can all focus on different ones. This is the most solvable giant problem. We should do it. We're not going to be judged, and we're not going to save any lives by our words today, although I am touched by your words. The people in this room, the variety of people in this room, the energy in this room, makes me more optimistic than I've been in 40 years talking about this problem. But all that will save lives, all that will transform the condition for people on our planet is the actions we take from here. God bless you all for focusing on this issue. God bless you all for being in this room. I look forward to seeing, hopefully, all of you at the Clean Cooking Fuel Summit in Kenya. But we have a chance to do something awesome that we can be proud of on our deathbed. Let's do it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. You are hopeful after four years. I am very hopeful after 25 years, to be honest with you.

I said 40 years.

Okay, 40 years. 40 years for me. So 25 years because for the first time, we were able to have a clean cooking event in UNGA. So this is the first time, and I am very proud of it. And I want to thank here the United Nations for opening this door to us and the turn to Mrs. Amira Mohamed, who is the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations. Over to you, Mrs. Mohamed.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Birold. I hope this is working. Thank you very much, Your Excellency, President Ruto, Excellencies. It's wonderful to be here and to have this room so full. in the UN. I'm just looking at my UN speech of 10 pages and then I am wondering how to respond to three men for whom this is a big woman's problem. To also hear 40 years and 25 years is probably an indictment of the international mutual what is supposed to be a huge problem for women and a billion of them. Um so I'd like I'd like to just put this speech to one side and and just please ask you to take President Ruto's speech. Because that has a every single remedy to what we need to look at. First that this is a women and children's issue. It is about health. It is about human dignity. First things first and we're talking about Africa today. five years to the SDGs and we are considerably off track so anyone talking about a goal that they want to attach this to we need to put some acceleration before it becomes groundhog day. The third is that the energy transition this should be an outcome of the energy transition not another project that we stick on to this or money that we look for for an initiative. It's part and an outcome in a billion women's lives and I speak passionately about this because 12 years ago in my country as the Minister of Environment, I came upon a internationally funded clean cooking program and we had a stadium full of clean cookers. None of them were good enough for the women of Africa. So I hope that when we're talking about this initiative, please let it be that national National plans, national solutions to this will be what we are funding, and we are funding an energy transition with an outcome in it. And that brings me to the financing. We should not be financing projects. This is part of financing infrastructure. The scale at which this has to happen and impact women's lives means we need to be serious about how we're bringing finance to this. Whether it is our multilateral development banks that will help us with this, and quite frankly, the M300 goes a long way to doing that because it opens up that space. But let this not just be a clean cooking for women. This is an infrastructure issue. It is a design issue in a home. It's not just a kitchen, it's a home, it's families. And we should be looking at that infrastructure with water in the home that you turn the tap on every day before you come to work, and that a kitchen that you can go to and cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner without having to think about not just the fact that you've got a funny cooker there that's using gas, but a complete holistic solution to clean cooking for women. Last but not least, please let there not be another five or 10 years for this. It is possible to make a difference, and let's do it in Nairobi. Thank you.

Let's do it.

Let's do it. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Secretary General. May I now turn to the Vice President of the Republic of Gambia, His Excellency, Mohamed Jallow. Over to you, sir.

Excellency, President Ruto, Excellencies, delegates, I thank President Ruto and Prime Minister Story for bringing us together around an issue that touches the daily lives of millions of African families. Clean cooking is often discussed as a question of energy access. It is what it is. Its significance is much further. How families cook affects their health, household spending, pressure on our forests and opportunities available to communities. Progress in clean cooking can therefore benefit many dimensions of development. Yet, they also bring into sharper focus an urgent challenge that we cannot afford to overlook. In Africa, the challenge is urgent. Too many households continue to depend on traditional cooking methods because cleaner alternatives remain beyond their reach. This is not a reflection of a lack of demand, it's a question of access affordability, and investment required to make cleaner options available at the scale our populations need. In the Gambia, only 1.6% of the population has access to clean fuel and cooking technologies, and rural areas depend almost entirely on wood fuel, exposing women to severe indoor air pollution and health risks. Excellencies, the government of Uganda is committed to expanding access to cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy as part of our broader development agenda. Our national energy compact sets a target to raise clean cooking access from 25 to 50% by 2030, supported by a gender responsive clean cooking strategy. Our nationally determined contribution also explicitly includes clean cooking measures. The NDC sets a conditional emissions reduction target of more than 50% and aims to reduce household emissions from traditional fuels such as charcoal and wood and to promote access to cleaner, more efficient cooking solutions. Furthermore, the Gambia's climate prosperity, investment and financing strategy, which is a nationally led unified framework to mobilize domestic and international investment for climate resilience also includes clean cooking and renewable energy among its key investment pillars. As a country, we recognize that lasting progress must reflect household realities. A transition that people cannot afford will not endure. Solutions that do not respond to local circumstances will not reach the scale required. Our commitment, therefore, must be matched with appropriate resources to deliver. For least developed countries with limited fiscal space, A successful transition to clean cooking depends on access to sustainable technologies, stronger national capacity, and financing terms that make implementation possible. This prerequisite requires international partnership to ensure the required resources are within reach of countries determined to translate their national commitments into real change for their people. The transition must also be shaped by greater African ownership. Our countries should play a stronger role in shaping solutions that might their energy realities, building institutions and capabilities to sustain them, and ensuring that the benefits of clean energy contribute to Africa's wider development. Africa should not have to choose between meeting its people's basic energy needs and pursuing a cleaner and more sustainable future. With the right investment and partnership, both are achievable. The Gambia stands ready to work with Kenya, Norway, and the Clean Cooking Alliance and other partners to advance this agenda in a meaningful way. I thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. May I now go over to Mr. Ajay Banga, the President of the World Bank Group. Ajay, over to you, please.

Six things to say. The first one is it's not just a health problem or a societal problem about women and children and the rest of it. It is an energy issue as well as a health and social issue. And I think we must keep that at the back of all of our thinking. The second point is Mission 300, which is the work we're doing with the African Development Bank on trying to reach 300 million people with accessible, affordable, baseload energy across Africa. has clean cooking embedded in each country's energy plan. This is a country by country plan in which each country has clean cooking in M300. Third is that what Fati, you said, There is no new technology to be sought here. So whether it is electric or LPG or biogas or ethanol or other technologies, that depends on the country's local circumstances. We need to do it country by country, but we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. That is the third point. Chris kind of said the same thing when he was speaking. Fourth, We've now learned that to mobilize private capital at scale, we've just, I was telling Azmun just now, we mobilized 112 billion of private capital last year to invest with us in the emerging markets. The year I started, the number was 31 billion. Today, for every dollar of World Bank investing, we mobilize a dollar of private capital. I've learned that four things matter. First, governments have to create the policy environment, but don't get in the way after that. Two, Businesses must invest and innovate and build the distribution. Third, people like us must provide the financing, but most importantly, reduce the risk. And fourth, we need philanthropic money to help test new approaches and stretch these scarce public resources together. That's the partnership we have to get together. In Rwanda, right now, 20 private companies have reached 2.2 million people with access to clean cooking. To Chris's point about unleashing entrepreneurship and investment, that's an example, Chris, in Rwanda. So that's my sort of fourth point. And the fifth is about the fact that over the period of the last decade and a half, the World Bank has put 500 million into clean cooking. We think we're reaching 95 million people. That's great, but there's a lot more to be done. And so the sixth point, which I was keeping for William Root over, he left so you can communicate to him is that we're working on an ambitious plan. If he really wants an ambitious plan, January, he's going to get it. And at that time, he's going to have to step up with all of us to count and push and push at everybody to not enable roadblocks to get in the way. He's going to get that plan and we're coming in January with that plan. So this is all lovely, but that's where we're going.

Thank you very much, Ajay. Now, may I now turn to African Union Commission, and we have the Commissioner for Energy and Infrastructure, Mrs. Mataboge, please. Thank you very much.

Is this on?

Okay. It's on, yes.

Thank you very much. And let me recognize the head table. Really for us to confirm that the African Union takes this agenda very seriously. Our heads of states adopted clean cooking as a continental priority, February 2025. We then saw South Africa's G20 presidency endorsing a clean cooking infrastructure plan. And similarly, last week in Houston, under the leadership of Secretary Wright, the G20 continued to prioritize clean cooking with the African Union in the room. So it's really an important agenda item for us. And in terms of our priorities as a continent, firstly, we are of the view that, one, we need to respect national circumstances when it comes to clean cooking. Africa needs a range of affordable, reliable, and safe cooking solutions, and our approach should allow countries to select technologies that are appropriate to their resources to their infrastructure and to their household needs. And financing decisions should assess health outcomes, affordability, and environmental performance without excluding viable solutions solely because of the energy source from whence they come. So technology neutrality is a key principle for us. Secondly, affordability must extend beyond the purchase of a stove. We must ask whether a household can afford the next cylinder refill or the next electricity payment. So national programs should address both the initial cost of equipment and the continuing cost of cooking. In our view, targeted support for vulnerable households, affordable consumer finance and reliable distribution should be integral to those programs. So we should measure our success by sustained use and not once of transition into clean cooking. Third, we require investment in the entire delivery system. I think this point has been made, and we really support the IEA's investment framework that estimates what we require for universal access. And we call on our partners. So happy to hear the World Bank is putting all muscle behind this, and development finance institutions to expand concessional finance, guarantees, and project preparation support. Fourth, the clean cooking investment should build Africa's productive capacity. We want African enterprises to manufacture the equipment, to assemble appliances, to distribute fuels, and provide maintenance. Procurement and financing programs should create opportunities for local businesses, particularly those led by women and led by young people. So our international partnerships should support technology transfer and skills development, enabling African firms to participate throughout the value chain. Fifth, delivery in Africa must remain under African leadership. Through the African Union and the African Energy Commission, we seek stronger coordination around national priorities and our partners, international partners, we encourage to align their support with individual country investment plans and measurable results. We also propose regular reporting on financing disbursed, on households that have been reached, and on affordability and continued use. This will help us to identify what works and to direct resources where progress is the slowest. As the African Union, we continue to stand ready to work with all of you, all of our partners and friends of Africa, to translate this important political and economic commitment into universal access and provision of healthcare for our women and children. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner. May I also thank the African Union for the great partnerships we have with the IAEA and the African Union on this issue. May I now turn to Alexander de Kruif, who is the administrator of the UN TB and wishing you all the best with your new job, Alexander. Over to you, please.

Well, thank you. I've been in the job for nine months now, so I at least survived that part. Look, we've heard many of the arguments why this is so important, but I would want to focus on one and then talk about how do we get this going. On emissions, We underestimate the emissions coming from traditional cooking. The emissions from traditional cooking alone is as much as the whole aviation industry worldwide. So this is a massive impact on emissions and the secondary impact, especially on climate change, is deforestation. Because finding the fuel for traditional cooking is leading to an acceleration in deforestation with all the climate impacts that it has. If we want to solve this, the barrier today indeed is not technology. I mean, all of that exists. The barrier today is to make the link towards bankable projects. These projects make economically total sense to do it. But to get it going, you need to get the financing going. And in many places that financing is not flowing. That financing is not flowing because the perception of risk is very often very high. I emphasize the perception of risk because in many places the reality is one that actually is perfectly feasible to do that. Now, correcting that That is typically something where an organization such as UNDP can come in. It's working with governments in creating the right circumstances where these investments can take place. Very often that's rule of law reforms, that's making sure that you have financial systems, that you have all types of the boundary variables to make sure that you have an environment where those investments can take place. And we've seen that in many places in Africa that today is happening. Second element is that There is indeed not one solution for this. And key to getting clean energy everywhere on the African continent is decentralized energy. And decentralized energy can be done in many different ways. But obviously today, renewable energy offers the best potential for doing that because It detaches you from the volatility of fossil fuel that we see today. And very often it's a very low level of risk compared to the other energy systems that you need. So we really think that this is one of the easiest way of reducing emissions throughout the world and in bringing all the other benefits that have happened. But please. It is technology, it is financing, but if you want to get it at scale, it is also system policy reforms. In the end, this is also work of bureaucrats sitting in cubicles and doing the not so sexy work, if I can call it that way. But that is part of getting it at scale and of achieving the objective that you have put forward. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Alexander. When you say emissions, let me tell you one result of our analysis here. Because when we said how we can bring the clean cooking to the, in Africa and beyond, our numbers show that the, looking at the countries, countries choices and the economics of it, big chunk of it comes from the LPG. followed by in some countries, the electric cooking, in some countries, the bioenergy and others. And some colleagues said, this LPG is not a problem for the emissions, for the growing emissions, and it will add to the increasing emissions. Then what we have is that we have calculated, and I asked my colleagues, Laura and others, You were right, the amount of the sink we lose from deforestation by cutting the wood is much more than even everybody, not the big chunk, everybody would use LPG. So you are better off to use LPG. I know people will have different choices, but extreme thing, if 100% was LPG, you are better off in terms of emissions compared to not doing anything. So therefore, the numbers show that losing this sink from deforestation is a big problem compared to the emissions that may come from the use of LPG for clean cooking purposes. May I now go to, and all the best for your new job once again, Alexander. Nine months is nothing. So can I now go to the African Development Bank Group? We have the Mrs. Akin Olukebade, Senior Vice President. Over to you, madam.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Dr. Sidi Oultra, President of the African Development Bank, I would like to commend the government of Kenya and Norway together with all the other organizer for bringing clean cooking to the level of attention that it has long deserved. And seeing this room so full is really a cause for joy. And it cannot be otherwise because really clean cooking sits at the intersection of health, of energy, climate, gender equality, economic productivity, and really how a family cooks should not be the determinant of its health, of its education, environmental sustainability, or even economic opportunities. And therefore, clean cooking is indeed a development imperative. And at the African Development Bank, we recognize that electricity access alone will not transform lives if we continue to have households who rely on polluting and inefficient cooking solution. Since the 2021 Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, I'm very pleased to confirm that clean cooking has become an integral part of our energy access agenda and our ambition to achieve universal access to modern energy across Africa. Mission 300, I think Ajay has mentioned it, led by the African Development Bank and the World Bank with the support of several partners, provides for us a powerful platform to accelerate progress. Why? Because actually the 36 national energy compacts that have been adopted to date all include clean cooking as a very important component. And as we know, all these energy compacts reflect a breadth of issues. So through that, we will address policy issues, financing issues, implementation, partnership, gender, health, climate. So all of that is already in the Mission 300 Energy Compact. So we cannot but focus on that agenda. And really our collective responsibility now is to translate all this commitment into investment, into implementation, into measurable results. And really, as we look ahead to COP31 and of course the 2027 summit in Kenya, we must sustain this momentum and we must strengthen the support for national priorities. We must accelerate practical solutions, including in school, in health facilities, in government building. So in Paris, we pledged, the African Development Bank pledged $2 billion over the next 10 years. And I'm pleased to report that we have already actually extended $135 million to clean cooking initiative just in the last two years. And really across Africa, we are really beginning to see what success looks like. Uganda is integrating clean cooking in energy access program. Tanzania is embedding it in the major electrification investment that they are doing. So it's not an isolated initiative. Rwanda is pioneering result-based approaches. I think President Ruto mentioned result-based financing as a way to promote this agenda. Ghana is advancing cleaner household energy solution through policy reform, market development, and private sector engagement. And we are also mobilizing more transitional and catalytic finance, which is required to accelerate this transition. And for that, we are working with the Rome Process Mattei Plan financing and also the Africa Clean Cooking Program under the SEFA. And we are looking for private sector led solution. We are also pushing the frontier of innovation. I'm sorry, President Ruto has left, but I wanted to tell him that his country was really a pioneer client for us because our first cardboard pre-financed transaction with Kenya-based Burn, B-U-R-N, so the company Burn Manufacturing, is demonstrating how future carbon revenues can actually unlock immediate financing for clean cooking technology. This is something that we have done, not something that we are just talking about. And really, through blended finance platform, such as Park2Africa Fund, we are also helping enterprises scale up their impact. So in conclusion, indeed, I don't think that the success will be measured by the dollars that we're investing, although it helps a lot, but by the lives that are going to be transformed. And we believe that no woman should risk her life, her health, because she cooks for her family. No child should miss education because they have to go and collect fuel. And there is no energy transition that will be complete if it leaves the kitchen behind. So it is a matter of dignity for us. It is a matter of climate outcome. It's a matter of development. So it's really not simply an energy outcome. Thank you very much.

Very many thanks to African Development Bank and also thank you and your group for working with us very closely on this topic. Can I now go to Brazil? We are fortunate to have the Ambassador Dollocco, the Vice Minister. Over to you, Andre.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Fati. I believe that President Lula will be so happy to know that this meeting is such a success because he's so much into that issue. And he insisted on having it in our G20, insisted on having it also at COP 30. And it was a very important part of the action agenda. And we're very happy that we're all together here for this amazing endeavor. But it's true that, first of all, it's a moral issue, it's a humanitarian issue, so it's difficult to go and get into the other dimensions. But the other dimensions are extremely important because they are the ones that will bring solutions. And the truth is that it is really a development issue. and we have to get together and make sure that the structures that we have converge to allow clean cooking in Africa to progress much more quickly as the Secretary General has said. It is also for us extremely important because it touches 10 SDGs, it improves 10 SDGs. I'm going to be another man to mention gender But I think it's fair. We have to. And fighting poverty, access to energy, there are so many issues that this will support. But naturally, as president of COP30, I have to talk about the dimension of climate change. And I'm very happy the administrator of the UNDP has mentioned that. And Clean cooking is very strongly reflected in the two roadmaps I'm going to present by early November. One, the roadmap on the transitioning away, and I think that it's very important to see all the solutions that we have regarding that, but also the roadmap on ending deforestation that was also mentioned by Mr. Decroux. I think I cannot agree more with Secretary Wright that this is solvable. We definitely have something in hand that is solvable, and people will see the difference, and it will change the life, literally, of billions of people. So thank you. Thank you so much for convening this, and my most congratulations to President Ruto for hosting that summit that will be delighted to come. And Fatih, this is an issue that for you is central and you're a hero in that issue. Thank you.

To tell you that you, Madame Vice President, mentioning COP 31, both Prime Minister Albanese and President Erdogan They both agreed that this will be, I'm very happy personally, they both agreed to put it in the also COP31 in Antalya, it will be discussed. We have colleagues from our Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Ekinji is here. And this is, of course, a great issue to get the support of different world leaders for this. May I now move to Sierra Leone. We have the Minister of Energy, Excellency Arnold Grant.

Good afternoon, Excellencies. I'd like to thank the United Nations, the IAEA, Clean Cooking Alliance, World Bank, all of who are here. I'd like to thank the leadership of Kenya, who we seem to follow. Kenya has established a clean cooking development unit and we followed through with ours as well. I'd like to thank Norway and I especially want to thank Secretary Wright who has been a champion, a passionate champion of clean cooking and in fact he's worked with our President Bo to help us promote clean cooking at scale which we hope to announce in Nairobi. I want to echo the issues. We are preaching to the choir. Everybody here knows what the issues are. Secretary Wright said a quarter of humanity at stake. It's, he did say it was a clean cooking fuel problem. And I was quite amused that he did say it's a women's liberation issue. And we side with that. It's a public health issue. There's no question about it. And it's also, in our case, where we are now 1.5 access to clean cooking. And we hope through our M300 goals, ambitious goals which we hope to push to 25% through many many schemes we know it financing infrastructure a problem and we thank again secretary right who is going to help us with the US LPG who are going to push clean cooking to scale so the next time that we meet in Nairobi we will be announcing ambitious goals where we are going to be using and making sure that the use of LPG as a fuel to get to scale for millions of Serolians is going to be a reality. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. Can I now go to Ireland? We have Mr. O'Brien, who is the Minister for Climate, Environment, and Energy. Over to you, Mr. Minister.

It's with some trepidation that I follow such distinguished.

Speakers before me, but just to say, look, the statistics are striking.

I think it's been mentioned by Secretary Wright and Ambassador Del Lago as well, like 2.5 million premature deaths with something that we can actually do something about it, and it's very gratifying, but also to see that the progress that has been made, but I think we're all in agreement that this is something that we can accelerate and accelerate greatly without the need for new technologies. And that's been very, very clear. Look, we've been really Happy and proud actually to have supported since 2022 the Clean Cooking Alliance and indeed for all of the really important work that that is actually doing. And I really do want to commend both the Brazilian, South African, the current US G20 presidencies for really shining a spotlight on this particular issue, the lack of availability for clean cooking. and most importantly, how we can protect the most vulnerable. I am another man who is speaking about protecting those most vulnerable, who are women and girls in this instance. We know what the lack of access means and the lifelong negative socio-economic effects that it has. Households spend an average of four hours per day collecting fuel and cooking over inefficient stoves by using traditional cooking methods. So we also note that cooking with biomass, it's been mentioned already, the detrimental effect that that has on health and outcomes indeed on emissions. And you know, we've recently provided, it was fantastic to hear President Ruto here today, speaking in Kenya, we've been able to work in partnership there about the provision of services for delivery unit networks in Kenya, also in Sierra Leone as well, ensuring that they are effectively resourced to drive national clean cooking and clean energy agendas. And, you know, I think when we look at SDG goal seven, access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. This should drive us in this space of something that there has been great progress made. And I want to assure you, Dr. Burrell, that as Minister for Energy and also Minister has assumed the presidency of the EU as well at this stage for this six-month period, that I really welcome the work that you've done. We were delighted to be there in July under the IEA's leadership as well and seeing what has moved from there. And look, all of us who are here present are I think really positive about what we can do, but we've got to redouble our efforts there in that regard. And with that in mind, I am very pleased to announce an initial voluntary contribution from Ireland as well to ensure the rollout of the Clean Cooking Alliance under the IEA of about 340,000 US dollars and to help support.

Thank you, colleagues.

But to help support the establishment of this new working group, which is absolutely critical, and I really want to commend the leadership that all of you have spoken before me have shown in this area. It's something that is right central on the agenda. I think, Secretary Wright, you have in particular shone a light on this. I commend you for that. And it shows that where we can look at issues that are there that are solvable, that working together on this, we can really advance progress in this regard. So a real honour to be with you here, friends, at this afternoon to assure you in that negotiations in COP from an EU perspective, from the EU and leading out in those negotiations with the EU, that we will ensure that clean cooking and that our support of EU states for this initiative and acceleration of this initiative remains central to everything that we do. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. We love Ireland, so thank you very much. This is amazing. Now, may I turn to the other minister, Minister of Energy and Mining from Lesotho, Minister Mphosene.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Biro. Let me also thank all the states, United States, Kenya, Norway, and the development partners for this important initiative. we will all agree that cooking is an imperative for all households. And therefore, it is no longer about what we say, it is about what we do. And if it is not in the performance documents of the officials, it will not be done. And therefore, as the Kingdom of Lesotho, we would like to commit that one of the initiatives that we intend to do is to establish a section or a department of clean cooking in the Ministry of Energy. Lesotho's mountainous terrain and dispersed rural settlements make conventional and grid expansion extremely difficult and costly. As a result, around 60% of the population living in the rural areas remain heavily dependent on traditional biomass. Recent survey findings show that biomass accounts for 66% of rural primary energy use, while 59.1% of rural households rely on open fire or traditional biomass for cooking. This dependence comes with a heavy human cost. Inefficient biomass burning causes dangerous indoor air pollution, contributing to respiratory and other health problems. It also places a disproportionate burden on women and girls. Nearly 19% of rural households spends seven or more hours every week collecting firewood, time that could instead be devoted to education, livelihoods, and community participation. Distinguished delegates, for Lesotho, clean cooking and clean space heating must be addressed together. As a high altitude country, we experience severe winters with freezing temperatures, frost, and snow. Nearly 40% of rural homes rely on indoor open fire and traditional resources for heating, while 60.6% of urban households depend on paraffin heaters. Yet only 18% of homes nationwide have cold resistant construction or thermal insulation. Space heating in Lesotho is therefore not a luxury, it is a matter of survival. The government of Lesotho is determined to change this reality. In 2025, we joined the Mission 300 initiative, and we are advancing a national clean cooking and space heating advocacy campaign. Our target is clear, to achieve more than 75% households adoption of clean cooking and thermal space heating solution across all 10 districts by 2030, while expanding mini grids, solar home systems, clean connections, and modern electric cooking through the ASCENT Lesotho project In partnership with the World Bank and other development partners, we are expanding grid and mini-grid access and developing a national clean cooking and space heating strategy. The Kingdom of Lesotho is also working with development partners to generate clean energy and be a net exporter of clean energy to the Southern African region. We invite our international partners, financiers, climate funds, and private sector to support our priorities. Concessional and result-based financing, targeting investments in cold climate heating and thermal housing, technology transfer and local manufacturing, and capacity building for carbon market participation. Your Excellencies, when we provided clean cookstove to a Mosutu woman in Mohotlo and Tabaseka, we provide more than an appliance. We give her back our hours of her life. We protect her life, her children, and forests, and her dignity. And on behalf of the Kingdom of Lesotho, we have already accepted the invitation to participate in Kenya in 2027. I thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. We were honored to host the King of Lesotho at IEA headquarters. Thank you very much, sir. So may I now turn to my colleague, Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Mr. Wandaai from Kenya, to further moderate our session. Over to you, sir.

Thank you very much, Dr. Fatih. Thank you, Secretary Wright, and thank you to all our distinguished speakers. for setting the stage so powerfully. We now turn to the final segment of our conversation. We turn to the final segment of our conversation, where I would like to hear from our partners and leaders in the room on how we can translate this growing momentum into investment, action, and delivery. Now, in the interest of time, and to allow us to hear from as many voices as possible, I will request that each speaker to limit their intervention to a maximum of two minutes, if agreeable. Okay. I would now want to invite His Excellency Wamkele Mene, the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area to take the floor. It's not there. Okay. It's not there. Okay, that's fine. Okay. You will then be requested to raise your name tags and then we shall call you a trandop. Without following any particular order, let's hear from Mr. Alain Ebubise, the CEO of Africa 50. I can see you are raising your name tag.

my hand I don't know the name tag yet but anyway so thank you uh uh cabinet secretary W my brother uh want to also to express my gratitude uh to my friend uh Dr. fati and and also the US, Norway, Kenya, of course, for convening this event together with the African Development Bank. Look, since 2024, the Tinku King Summit, we've seen a significant momentum, but clearly we need to do a lot more. We need to scale up the impact. At Africa 50, We believe clean cooking and same as distributed renewable energy, this is core infrastructure. I think we need to see a lot more equity, equity investment. There is quite a bit of debt already in the market. So what is missing, equity to capitalize companies that would deliver clean cooking solutions. That's what we're doing. Two days ago, right here in New York, we announced the commercial close of our DRE fund, which we are co-managing with Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, $300 million for DRE, but that will include also clean cooking. Three weeks ago, actually four weeks ago in Zimbabwe, we announced a Pan-African fund. not only announcing the commercial close, meaning that we are ready to start to deploy the capital, that's a $200 million fund. So altogether, we have $500 million that we could invest in DRE, including clean cooking. So this is what we are doing. In terms of the project, we're also moving on project. Actually, I should say platforms, because individual projects are too small. We need to do platforms so that we can scale. In Ethiopia, what we are doing is quite interesting together with the African Development Bank and the Ethiopian Sovereign Wealth Fund. What we are doing is basically a utility anchored financing vehicle. We are using the billing system of the utility to target as many people as possible to deliver clean cooking appliance. We are targeting 8.8 million people over 10 years. Similarly in Kenya, we are aggregating the demand to make sure that we can build bankable structures In summary, what we need to do now is to invest, is to move. I mean the policy people continue to do policy. We need to push the investment. We have some of the funds equity. We can catalyze. We are looking for partners. By the time we go to Kenya in January, actually at the conference in 2027, we believe we'll be able to announce not only our funds but also a platform that will deliver clean cooking at scale. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Let's hear from Ms. Rachel Kitay, United Kingdom.

Thank you very much. So, all protocol and all diagnoses observed. Three points in two minutes. Delivery is possible. Finance has to align behind what works. and clean cooking must be fit for the modern age of energy transitions and the age of electricity. Many countries have shown that progress accelerates when Governments set direction, set clear targets and bring partners behind their national plans. That is how national plans become investable pipelines, finance becomes co-ordinated and delivery starts to reach households. The urgency that's needed where the challenge is greatest is in sub-Saharan Africa, but we've seen from President Ruto and others leadership. Second, no country or institution delivers this alone. Since 2016, the Transforming Energy Access Programme, which we fund and sponsor as the UK, has improved clean energy access for tens of millions of people, helped test and grow new technologies. Modern Energy Cooking Services has improved clean cooking access for about 5 million people, building the evidence for electric cooking, e-cooking. helped put international policy and leveraged a further 600 million pounds and we've leveraged about 2 billion through TA over the years. I think what's also interesting is that we've now sort of come up with new business models where we can do a new utility for humanitarian situations. And so the idea that we can't reach the furthest mile is disproven at the moment. We've got modern cooking partnerships with Saudi Arabia and France. We've got e-cooking demonstrators going on in school programs, linking school feeding to e-cooking across East Africa. So we know the proven models that work, and now we have to bring the finance behind that. We are on the cusp of being able to make carbon markets work for Africa. One that's something that's very important for COP32, and the tools are at hand. We've got cookstoves projects that are supplying the first ever Article 6.4 credits, like-minded governments working together to unlock market demand. And then third, the transition has to be genuinely clean and future facing. As Amina Mohammed said, we're in the process of energy transitions, and so the answers to clean cooking fit into the answers to the energy transition. Countries can ride the trends of electrification as well. And especially at this particular moment with global energy disruption, why should households and governments be locked into solutions that are simply going to be a victim to fossil fuel and price volatility? I think that's where e-cooking provides reliable and affordable power that is also part of energy security and part of household security. And then finally, just personal, I don't know whether I've been working on this for 40 years or 25 years, but a long time with many of the other women in this room in particular. And I think I've been at sessions in the UN on this before, maybe not with so many esteemed men in the room at the time. But I think that there is an important point here, and Secretary Wright, you said this, right, that this is a business problem. And what's really interesting to me is that that 2 billion people in the world who don't have access to clean cooking, a billion of them more or less in Africa, that's one hell of a market. And we talk about empowering women and we talk about building markets, but those women are a market and if you empowered them and if they had the financial means, they would go out and choose the clean cooking solutions that they need in order to keep their families safe. And so I would ask that in powerful rooms like this, we simply connect the reality of household finances, women's access to finance, trusting them to make the right solutions and the provision of the solutions from the supply side that we're all working on. I think then perhaps we can go at speed and scale. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you very much. It is now the turn of the WHO.

Thank you very much, Excellencies. We've been discussing all afternoon the lack of clean cooking as an energy issue, a development issue, a humanitarian issue, a climate issue, but fundamentally and originally, of course, as a number of you have spoken to, it was a health issue. And you spoke that the 850,000 deaths a year, but when we look globally, it's closer to 3 million. And many people speak to that, and Secretary, you spoke so nicely of the mental health cost as well and the well-being costs of the opportunity costs associated with searching for fuels. But what we don't talk about, and I'm going to give you another number, a more powerful number right now, what we don't talk about is the injuries that are also caused and chronic diseases by this. But as a result of that, and Fati, I want to make sure you heard the number, is that we estimate that we lose nearly 100 million years of healthy life every single year because of unclean cooking the number is staggering. So, what we, big believers at WHO of course in the health energy nexus and as we go forward, three big things from our side, first and foremost, we'll be helping to generate the evidence and the numbers that everybody has been quoting. But the second is the normative guidance around what cooking mechanisms are actually safe for health, because not everything is and not everything quoted, actually some today aren't. And then finally, the technical support to help countries. But the other thing that we're really trying to do is leverage the tremendous trust in the health sector and health delivery to actually be clean cooking champions as we go forward. So with all of that fully committed and we will be there in Nairobi. Thank you for that invitation and we look forward to the second summit and doing our part.

Most welcome, Nairobi. Let's hear from France.

Thank you, Minister. It's a pleasure to be here with you after our big event in Africa, the Africa Forward Summit held in Nairobi in May. And I will be very brief just to reiterate full French support on your initiative and your leadership. Just to recall also that money is already flowing after the very first clean cooking summit held by the IEA in Paris back in the days where President Macron and several leaders commit to the very first step of this initiative and it's very positive to see it's getting bigger and bigger interest. I will just explain a little bit what France is doing and we are working with our France development agency to mainstream clean cooking as a part of all investment strategy, which is really consistent and we will be happy to showcase it in Nairobi. We are also fully supporting you in the electrification agenda. Let's bring this topic to COP31 because electrification of clean cooking will bring also affordability for those households. We all know and we recalled together in Nairobi that Africa has a gigantic potential on renewable energy, which is critical for energy sovereignty. We are also working with a lot of African country on nuclear and in this context of very difficult energy prices, affordability electricity will be critical if we want to solve this problem. So you can count on us. We will be there in Nairobi. And congratulations again for your leadership on this critical issue.

Thank you very much. Let's now hear from Ghana.

Your Excellencies, Ghana is grateful to you for the opportunity to be at this high-level side event. For us in Ghana, The issue of clean cooking is not a side issue. It is very critical in our energy transition. As I speak, as a country, we have completed our national clean cooking policy and strategy. We are just one validation workshop and cabinet approval away from the implementation. Ghana is ready. As we speak, we have received about $17 million from the World Bank. We are targeting to spend about 500 million to provide 5 million cookstoves across households. And our expectation is that by January 2027, when we meet in Kenya, by the time Ghana's policy would have been approved by cabinet and implementation would have started. Ghana is ready and we invite investment partners to come join us so that we move the conversation from policy to real action. It is our expectation that this issue of clean cooking will not be one of the many issues discussed at high level conferences and nothing is seen after. But we want to see follow-up action, follow-up action that will lead to ensuring that every household, especially households that women, single mothers are suffering from the issue of not having access to clean energy and clean cooking, they should be able to have these solutions in the household level. So we invite all of you to support us and I believe we'll meet in Nairobi in January. Thank you.

So we move further to South Africa.

Thank you, thank you, Chairperson, Excellencies and distinguished delegates. South Africa welcomes the opportunity to address an issue that is fundamental, of course, to Agenda 2030 and the related SDGs and takes this opportunity to express its support for this important initiative. For South Africa, clean cooking is not merely an energy question. It is a matter of health, dignity, gender equality, environmental sustainability, and inclusive economic development. As has been indicated in the interventions we had earlier, close to 1 billion people in Africa lack access to clean cooking solutions. And we've heard, of course, about the consequences of that, especially for women and children. It is for this reason, Chairperson and Excellencies, that during its G20 presidency last year, South Africa highlighted the scale of this challenge, in particular the urgent need to close the clean cooking gap. Chairperson, South Africa's approach is grounded in the principle that there cannot be a just energy transition if millions of people remain excluded from modern energy services. Our objective, therefore, should be universal access to cooking solutions that are affordable, reliable, safe, sustainable, and appropriate to national and local circumstances. It is also in this regard that during our G20 presidency, South Africa championed the Voluntary Infrastructure Investment Action Plan to accelerate the deployment of clean cooking solution. This action plan identifies four critical areas, namely policy enablement, mobilization of finance, market and industry development, and closing the knowledge gap. We wish to, in this regard, specifically highlight the important question of finance. For many developing countries, and particularly low-income households, the principal obstacles is not necessarily the absence of technology, but the absence of affordable, finance and infrastructure required to deploy that technology at scale. We therefore call for greater mobilization of concessional finance, blended finance, development finance, and private sector investment, while ensuring that the burden of the transition does not fall disproportionately on poor and vulnerable households. As I conclude, Mr. Chairperson, and of course guided by the African spirit of Ubuntu, which is the belief that I am because we are, South Africa calls for strengthened international solidarity to ensure that every household can cook safely, affordably, and sustainably. I thank you.

Thank you very much. And as we proceed, I once again urge that we restrict ourselves to two minutes maximum to allow as many as possible to be heard. Let's now proceed to Denmark.

Thank you so much.

And a huge thank you for all of you at the high table today. I think it's really been amazing to witness the unique political will and the momentum we have behind.

Clean cooking today. That is really what we need to drive this agenda forward.

My main message today is that Denmark, we were there with my former minister, Dan Jorgensen, in Paris. We will stay committed to invest in clean cooking. Of course, we can discuss all the priorities on technology.

I think a key important thing is that the technology has to fit the household and the women who cook.

We cannot overlook that factor when we employ this new technology.

But also whatever technology we employ, it's actually no matter what much more energy efficient than the burning of the wood that is happening right now.

Obviously, we see e-cooking as if you take the life circle cost as a unique solution moving forward. We also firmly believe it's a private sector market, we will help pushing that forward. We are investing together with the World Bank moving this agenda.

We are planning new initiatives that we will.

Bring to Nairobi, my second home, so I'm looking so much forward coming back to your beautiful country.

In January next year.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Les here from Netherlands.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pity that this file cannot be used as a burning material because I'm not going to use it. What I wanted to say is that from this discussion, it is clear that no matter where you come from, no matter what your point of departure is, we all consider wood-fired cooking as a problem of all of us, of humanity, if you wish. That means that we need a lot of cooperation to solve it. It also means that those that are closest to the fire should be in the driving seat. Their voices should be heard. And that's about the individuals that cook. It's about local communities. It's about the governments of Africa that are the only ones that will be able to support the creation of markets that work and deliver what is necessary and to deliver the necessary infrastructure. As for the cooperation and the solidarity, I would just like to commend all those that have been working on this issue with all their energy for a long time. and also welcome all the people of the NGOs, charities and companies that are here today, because this really should be a collective effort. As for the Netherlands, we've been a substantive donor for more than a decade now and we also stand ready to support the integration of the Clean Cooking Alliance in the International Energy Agency so that it can use the expertise and the organizational capacity of the IEA but also maintain the specific dimension of the Clean Cooking Alliance. Many thanks.

Thank you very much. Let's get some remarks from Chevron.

Thank you very much. And it's kind of wonderful being in a UN room where Chevron is invited to be part of the solutions. and offer up some of our ideas. And I will pick up a point that was made by the colleague from the UK. Providing access to clean cooking is great for business. Chevron has long known that. It's why we have made investments in the communities in which we operate. It's why we are proud members of the Bettering Human Lives Foundation. And there's three points I'd like to make. First and foremost, Chevron is in the business providing the affordable, reliable energy that the world needs to fuel human progress. And we put our capital investments into doing that in partner countries like Nigeria, like Angola, like Equatorial Guinea, like Cameroon, like so many countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Second, we do recognize that strong communities equal a strong workforce for our operations in those countries. It's why, with our charitable investments, We recognize if you invest in a woman, you invest in a family. You invest in the family, you strengthen a community, and you strengthen a nation. That's why we have been making partnership commitments. for women's initiatives across sub-Saharan Africa. And third, we don't just talk about it, we actually put our money where our mouth is. We just made a commitment for $25 million investment in the Niger Delta to work in partnership with the Nigerian government to invest on initiatives focused exclusively on those community development projects, including access to clean cooking stoves. We also just announced an MOU including a one million commitment, which was just made in the past month, working in partnership with the Bettering Human Lives Foundation on ways to explore expanding that. At the end of the day, those partnerships with money behind them are how we're going to tackle this problem because businesses know how to scale these solutions, and we're proud to be part of the solution for this important issue. Thank you.

Okay, we now turn to band manufacturing.

Thanks very much, Cabinet Secretary. Bern is one of the largest clean cooking distributors and manufacturers in the world. And I want to start today by expressing my gratitude because we may be one of the few companies in this room who've actually received the money that gets pledged in a session like this. So as was mentioned, we were one of the first recipients from funding from the African Development Bank's SAFA program, as well as from the World Bank's Ascent program for clean cooking. And I want to assure all of you that that money is now not just sitting in an account, it's now electric stoves that are deployed in homes, in kitchens in Kenya and across Africa. And the first takeaway I have for all of you is this, the time between signature and full deployment on these kinds of programs, it used to take years. Now we're seeing it happen in weeks or months. It's happening a lot faster, and at Bern, we're deploying hundreds of thousands of stoves to homes every month. We sell a stove every 10 seconds across electric stoves, LPG stoves, and the world's most advanced biomass stoves. Second takeaway is this, the evidence is in now. Randomized control trial on our stoves was just published in July out of Wharton and Chicago Booth. And it found that burn stoves are, I quote, "Among the most effective abatement opportunities "available to the world today, "hundreds of times more effective than EV "or solar subsidies." And they also found that nearly all the stoves are still in use and providing enormous benefit four years after deployment. So we're past the point of asking whether this works. So my ask is about the scale. Over $2 billion has been pledged since Paris. And so far, only a fraction of that has reached the ground. We're still seeing that financing in this sector is often happening in small batches, 10,000 stoves here, 50,000 stoves there. And that's for a problem that's affecting a billion people. The bottleneck is not proof anymore, and it's not capacity. At Burn alone, we have five factories in Africa, 3,500 staff, and a capacity of 6 million stoves to deploy each year. Those factories are not running at full capacity today. So I applaud the pledges and it's really the most promise I've ever seen in this sector in my 13 years working in it. But I also implore all of us, let's make a step change in the scale. Let's move from funding pilots to funding programs and infrastructure that match the size of the problem. At Burn, we're ready to deploy. We can start tomorrow. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Again, in the interest of time, I'm now suggesting we reduce the time to one minute each and we proceed with Energia. Energia. We have to close in the next 10 minutes, yes.

Yes, thank you. I join the voices to congratulate the co-organizers in this milestone event at UNGA. And I'd like to build on the comments of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to recognize the role of civil society that plays in this transition to clean cooking for all, as I noticed that I probably will be the only civil society voice speaking here today. Civil society bridges the gap between policy and people. We work closely with communities and connects people's lived daily experiences, particularly those of women and marginalized groups, to understanding local needs, building trust, supporting behavioral change interventions that are critical for adoption, sustained use, and clean cooking solutions. For example, the role that health workers have played in Nepal, India, and in Nigeria. We're also important in working with local authorities and with national governments in bringing the perspectives of local communities into planning process. An example is the county of Embu in Kenya, where a civil society organization, Practical Action, has been leading in working with local authorities to engage with community leaders and women's groups in task force that are shaping much more inclusive planning processes, designing with communities rather than for communities. Third, play an important accountability role, such as bring a constructive countervailing voice to processes in the mission 300 rollout. Civil society organizations are also important in reaching the last mile, particularly in underserved communities where commercial markets and public services are limited. Working in companies such as Bern and Envirofit really to get to the hardest to reach areas where others do not engage. If we are serious about achieving universal access to clean cooking by 2030, we must recognize civil society not just as an add-on invited to meetings, but as a strategic partner. And we look forward to a stronger and more meaningful engagement at the Clean Cooking Forum in Nairobi next year. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Let Germany take the floor.

All right, I just go ahead. Thank you very much. It's good now. All right, that's perfect timing. Thank you very much for the invitation and for sharing us on this important topic. As you probably know, Germany has been spearheading clean cooking for more than 20 years, including in Kenya and through the Energizing Development Program, together with other European partners like the Netherlands, for example, Norway and Switzerland, and overall I'm happy to say that 28.6 million people have actually gained access to clean cooking solutions. So that engagement is there and we are committed to continuing our engagement through various bilateral and multilateral. M300 has been mentioned many, many times in the room. over the coming years, and we always also look forward to the summit. Having said that, we strongly believe that, you know, recognizing country circumstances and also national strategies and long-term strategies are the best way to go. And also having said that, we do see, as Mr. De Crow mentioned and others do see, the benefits of electric cooking these days, just looking at the cost and also looking at the increasing viability, not talking against openness for technologies, but I think looking at cost effectiveness, it is just something we need to recognize if we look at you know, the successes in grid expansion now, also the price development for electric cooking, and also looking at resilience. If you look at current trade patterns in this world and interruptions of delivery channels, there are benefits of electrification, and we therefore also strongly support that the COP presidency has proposed a global electrification goal of 35 by 35, and we fully support that clean cooking should be an integral part of this agenda. So Germany is fully behind that, as I said, fully recognizing national strategies and different pathways to move in that direction. With that 20-year-old engagement through energizing development, we are, of course, also very ready to be part of the summit. And I'm also happy to announce that we have recently joined the Clean Cooking Alliance. Thank you very much to IEA for hosting. And we look forward to really continuing this conversation on mobilizing the right finance, supporting the best strategies at country level and including that whenever possible and wherever possible in the respective decarbonization strategies of the countries we work with. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Let's hear briefly from Rockefeller Foundation.

Thank you. At the Rockefeller Foundation, our focus is on increasing access

Do you have two Rockefeller Foundations?

Okay, sorry. Andy, go first.

Okay, fine. Just one person, please.

That's him.

He is the mission. Okay. So who is having the floor? Is that Rockefeller Foundation?

Mission 300 Accelerator at the Rockefeller.

Okay, let the Mission 300, can you proceed? Okay, thank you. I appreciate it.

So to avoid the confusion, the Mission 300 Accelerator with the Rockefeller Foundation. We've had a lot of discussion about Mission 300, so I thought it'd be good to share a little perspective about what we've been doing on clean cooking since the announcement in Paris a few months ago when our team, along with others with Dymfna and Amana from my team and Shiana from Department of Energy, we launched the Clean Cooking Accelerator Initiative with Energy Corps, the Global Energy Alliance, CoAction Global, CCA, and others. And one of the things that we did was we decided to place clean cooking fellows in several countries. And I'm just pleased to report that over the last few weeks, I visited with some of those fellows who are actually making quite a bit of progress. I was in Cote d'Ivoire two weeks ago and we were having a session on Mission 300 with all the government officials to check in on progress. A question came up from civil society, what about clean cooking? And who jumped in but the Clean Cooking Fellow to talk about

how important it was to Mission 300 and what they're doing.

Similarly, last week I was in Madagascar and it was our fellow there who organized a meeting with the Clean Cooking Alliance that's based in Madagascar. And it struck me that Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It's 80% of the species in Madagascar endemic to Madagascar only. Only 10% of the people use clean cooking. In the next 10 years, all the forests will be gone if we don't address this issue. And so what struck me is that what we need to do with Mission 300, one of the things we have been doing are least cost electrification plans in every country. not all countries have least cost energy plans, plans that look at both the least cost of not just electrification, but the least cost of clean cooking. And I'd like just to draw on the comment from my friend, the commissioner from the African Union, who mentioned that we need to respect national circumstances. We need to respect local circumstances. I had an opportunity to meet with people in small villages, and every household is different in terms of what it needs and what they want. So this is why need these plans to look at what the lowest cost of clean cooking is going to be. It might be LPG, it might be e-cooking, it might be something else, but that's where we need to focus and that's where we're going to make the progress.

Thank you. Rockefeller Foundation.

Thank you. At the Rockefeller Foundation, our focus is on increasing access to school meals. And for us, we're very conscious if we're to do that, 80% of school meals are actually prepared using biomass. They say it takes an equivalent of one tree to feed a child for a year. So how are we solving this? We're working with government so that we can develop mass transition plans. We've started with the government of Kenya, where we've developed a plan to transition all the schools, all the public to clean cooking and then also thinking about how that financing can be supported. Specifically, we're working with the government to develop a carbon project and hopefully that will be one of the first to go into the market and then also looking to work with other governments. We've already started working with the government of Rwanda. We look forward to working with you on the conference and we commit to supporting financing for the conference and then also in developing and planning the agenda for that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Very briefly, let's hear from Vitol.

Good afternoon.

Thank you very much.

Vitol is an energy and infrastructure company.

Together with our daughter company, Vivo Energy, we have energy distribution assets in 30 African countries and LPG distribution in 17 African countries. We've long invested in clean cooking and in LPG, and as part of the 2024 initiative in Paris, we committed to invest $550 million by 2030. I'm pleased to report that we have invested $150 million to date, and we have a pipeline of projects that we see making the rest of that commitment. I'd like to just bring my perspective on three things to this room today. To accelerate clean cooking with LBG and with the other initiatives, carbon credits and the ability to generate those credits under Article 6 is a big accelerator that could enable a lot of revenue to be used to subsidize the cookstoves to build that market that our colleague from the United Kingdom described. So that is a really a huge opportunity that I urge everybody to think about moving away from voluntary credits. Number two is consistent regulations. For us, we care first and foremost about health and safety, not only of the people, but also of our operations. And consistent regulation of the safety of the distribution chain is important to ensure that that stays paramount. And the third one is, as we talk about clean cooking as infrastructure, as a private investor, stable regulations is very important to us so that we understand the market structures and that we can make our investments with confidence that the regulations will stay that way for the medium term. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. And now to wind up, let's hear from Nigeria.

Thank you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, your excellencies. For Nigeria, we have similar plans as Ghana. We have been able to come up with an ambitious plan, which is to sort of touch 5 million homes with access to clean cooking by 2030. But Mr. President thought that we should make it a longer plan. So we have moved it to 10 million homes in 2060. What do we need to achieve this? We need support. We have a national clean cooking policy, but we need a framework where partners, national, other international organizations, and of course, we've recently joined the IEA, where we hosted yourselves in Nigeria. So we need all the support we can get to get a framework. How do we make this possible? Because we have critical issues. For instance, the woman in the village, how do you explain to her that, you know, it's better to cook with, for instance, gas than firewood. You know, they die and they don't even know why they're dying. So we need a lot of sensitization to sort that out. And then we need to have access.

I'm from a riverine area.

Even if you give them the cylinders, how do they refill them? So we have very critical issues, and that's where we need support from you all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'll indulge Gold Standard just for one minute.

Yes, your excellencies, thank you very much for organizing this meeting and for including Gold Standard in the discussion. Gold Standard is really working to leverage finance via carbon markets for climate action and development, especially in developing economies and with a strong focus on clean cooking with thousands of projects, many, many of them in the African continent, hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 reduced and billions of shared value created. So we really believe that we can transform a carbon price or a liability on the private sector into a massive opportunity for development impact in the world, because we know that there is no net zero without clean cooking. And yet, household cooking sits outside corporate value chains and therefore risks being left behind amidst an increasing need for corporate decarbonization. So when we hear about how solvable the clean cooking crisis is, we can actually look to the aviation sector alone that could provide via a carbon price or market, the finance that can drive significant investment in solving the clean cooking crisis. So we at Gold Standard looking forward to making that happen, working with governments across Africa and with partners like the Clean Cooking Alliance and implementation partners on the ground like Bern and Ecofit. to leverage and scale carbon markets to help drive the transition to safe, reliable, clean, and modern cooking, healthier homes, healthier ecosystems, women's empowerment, and improved livelihoods across the African continent and across the world. And look forward to seeing you in Nairobi in January.

Thank you very much. Very briefly, Vera.

Yes, thank you, everyone. And I'll just jump right into it and pulling right off of where Gold Center left. I just want to raise the question on how finance actually reaches households because that is where we at Vera see the biggest progress and also the greatest obstacles. The families who most need a clean stove are generally those least able to pay for one, and that's why carbon finance has become so important in this sector. For many clean cooking projects, it's the main source of revenue, if not the only. It covers the cost of the stove upfront, and just as importantly, it pays for the maintenance and follow-up that keep the stove in use years later. And that last point is one of the clearest lessons from more than 250 clean cooking projects in our program. Distributing a stove is the relatively easy part. The health and climate benefits only materialize, though, if households keep using it. And because carbon revenue depends on measured continued use, it rewards exactly the kind of long-term engagement with communities that makes these projects succeed. The other lesson is that finance follows integrity. And over the last few years, we and others have strengthened how emission reductions in this space are measured with better science, direct monitoring of stove use, and more conservative assumptions, working closely with the Clean Cooking Alliance throughout that process. And that work's paying off. These methodologies are approved under the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Market, which is the highest bar for integrity in the carbon market. The first credits carrying the label, these labels were issued in February from a project in Nigeria. And in January, nearly 5 million credits from projects in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia became the first to be labeled for airline compliance under CORSIA. With airlines now facing real obligations, there is private capital ready to flow into clean cooking alongside public commitments. made through the summit process. So just on the collaboration ahead of 2027, I would highlight one practical issue, which is Article 6, as someone else raised. Much of the new demand for clean cooking credits from airlines and from buyer countries depends on host governments authorizing those credits under the Paris Agreement. And many are being asked to do so before they have registries, legal frameworks, or staff in place. And they understandably want confidence that authorizing credits will not compromise their own climate targets. So this is a question of capacity rather than willingness. And it's one that development partners in this room are well placed to support. And Vera is here to support that as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Maybe we hear briefly from Envirofit and then Wild Liquid Gas before the final remarks. Envirofit.

I'll just talk until this turns on. First of all, thank you everyone. Thanks for hanging on. I'll try to keep the comments brief. This has been a really important discussion and really, I'm really enthusiastic to hear all of the points of view. I think we've identified a couple things here. So we don't have a technology problem when it comes to clean cooking. Envirofit has spent more than 20 years working on clean cooking. We're an innovator, we're a leader in the market, and we spent many of the first years developing clean technologies. But those technologies, you know, have been replicated, scaled, innovated, passed. There's a lot of opportunity around the technology side, and we don't have a tech problem. you know, between companies like Byrne, Envirofit, others that aren't here today in the private sector, we don't have a scale of production problem. You know, I think what we have is a risk problem. Our biggest problem is who absorbs that financial risk that the customer can't absorb and the private sector can't absorb at scale. You know, carbon finance has played a, is a critical tool in the toolbox for us. It's played a critical role for us to be able to get into households and bridge that gap between what the household can actually afford and bringing a high technology into that household. But it is also fairly slow. It's years between the time that we put a stove into the market before we actually pay back the carbon financing and make any real margin as a company, you know, so it is a slow moving process. You know, it's great to hear our colleagues at Bern feel like the pace is picking up for access to financing, but I think I would echo for my other colleagues in the private sector that we feel like we really have a problem of pace because the financing is lagging to some extent, and we need support to lower that barrier to make financing accessible And this has to be high risk financing. 20 years on the market, on the ground, I can tell you it's hard. Things don't always go as planned. When I started, I looked a lot different than I do now. But we keep working at it. And there's a lot of energy in the room. There's a lot of people that have been worried about clean cooking for many more years than me. But what we need is support on breaking the barriers to entry into those financings, into the financing that's available. and making sure that that high risk financing comes right up front. Because, you know, that's the part, every country, every market, every community has a slightly different set of priorities and nuances. And so there's going to be risk involved and we need your support. So I'm looking forward to being there in Kenya and anybody who's looking to invest dollars And if I haven't talked to you already, please come find me because we are ready and open for business and we're looking for you as well.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yes, while Liquid Gas Association.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I realize we passed time, so I'm going to be really brief. Firstly, yes, big thank you to everybody for the energy. for being here, not just here, but all of the meetings that have been held over the last several years on this. I represent the LPG industry. My organization brings together about 300 private sector organizations working in 125 countries across the world. LPG is featured strongly here, and rightly so, because it will be the largest contribution to solving this problem. The private sector knows what works and we know what doesn't work. We know what's holding us back and a lot of those things have been said today. I don't want to go back and talk about all of the issues. Risk is absolutely one of the major things. But I want to say in the last few years, our industry has been getting on with this problem. Gas do Povo in Brazil. Ujjwala in India, we've switched more than 500 million people to cooking with LPG. So we know what works. We need the right regulatory framework in countries. We need to work with governments to get that regulatory framework which brings down risk. Technology neutral, we've talked a lot about being technology neutral, but I wonder sometimes if we truly are technology neutral. There's been a lot of talk about particular solutions. I would say our big, big issue and our big challenge is speed of deployment. You have almost a million people dying every year. We cannot afford to wait for the perfect solution when we have a solution which is deployable right now. So my plea to you is let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. And on that, the Stockholm Environment Institute has done a study recently. A wholesale switch to LPG for cooking by 2040 would take about 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of our cumulative emissions. That is equivalent to about taking 500 million vehicles off the road by 2040. 500 million vehicles is a third of the passenger cars right now in the world and bear in mind that we have about 50 million electric vehicles right now so it's 10 times that volume so this is not just a health and social issue I fully agree it's a climate issue and it's a climate issue that we can solve quickly as well so what I would like to say to you all here is we as the WLGA and the LPG industry stand ready to work with any government in this room or outside this room that wants to develop a national LPG market roadmap. We would look at regulation, infrastructure, supply, and investment needs. And I strongly believe that if we can align policy, regulation, and finance, we can move millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people to clean cooking within the next 12 years, certainly before 2040. So I look forward to seeing you all in Nairobi and I hope that by then we do have some concrete projects to put before you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. We have a wish to hear the closing remarks, but I can see Poland is making a case.

Thank you very much, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, on the part of Poland, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for this significant undertaking, and we support strengthening collective efforts to accelerate progress to improve clean cooking access across Africa. Africa is seen as a partner with enormous growth potential, and yet clean cooking remains there the most critical gap. What I would like to stress is that Poland's experience suggests the most resilient transitions are those that balance affordability and energy security. Therefore, there's one thing to remember, infrastructure matters. Poland has, for instance, achieved near universal access to clean cooking throughout a combination of networks spanning from import terminals to original storage facilities. The same rule is applicable for anywhere else. We believe that well-planned and well-coordinated infrastructure investments are crucial to success of African countries to access the clean cooking solutions. It's very demanding process that relies on the perseverance of many. That's why Poland is now considering joining Clean Cooking Alliance, and we are now undertaking and assessing our institutional and financial capabilities to do so. Thank you, IEA, for its leadership. Thank you, Kenya and Norway, for co-hosting this event. And thank you, the U.S. government, for driving the initiative forward.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, excellencies, distinguished colleagues, thank you very much for the rich and constructive interventions. So now to close this whole chapter of interventions and to close the conference, allow me to give the floor to the CEO of the Clean Cooking Alliance to make some few remarks before you go today. Thank you. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Colleagues and friends, thank you so, so, so very much for your extraordinary leadership today. The level of political will and the diversity of partners assembled here today is unprecedented. When the Clean Cooking Alliance was founded 15 years ago, this level of engagement was only a dream. It is the direct result of years of relentless collaboration, investment, and advocacy by many, if not all of you in this room. Today, we celebrate a major milestone. Clean cooking is finally center stage at the UN General Assembly. But we cannot stop here. We must turn this unique momentum into immediate, lasting action with the funding to match that. To guide us, I propose two principles. First, transitions must remain country-led. There is no single fuel, technology, or pathway that works everywhere. Governments need flexibility. They must determine the energy mix that fits their national priorities, balancing affordability, infrastructure, and climate goals. Electricity, LPG, ethanol, biogas, and biomass must all remain on the table. For most nations, success requires the full suite of these solutions. In many regions, scaling access also means building economic trade corridors across borders. A powerful example of this is the regional Clean Cooking West Africa program, supported by the EU and the Netherlands and implemented by CCA and partners. Our role as an international partner is clear. We are here to expand choices, not to narrow them. And we must back those choices with predictable finance, robust technical support, and the sheer skill required to succeed. Second, ambition must be met with the capacity to deliver. Countries do not need more wishful plans. They do not need more pilot projects. They need sustained capacity to execute. We see this reality directly in CCA's delivery unit partnerships with Kenya and Sierra Leone. Let me pause here. These delivery units work. They deliver, and they deliver because they are led by deeply dedicated, inspiring leaders. They are coordinating governments and turning national strategy into real-world implementation with achievements that truly matter on the ground. Crucially, this delivery agenda must extend beyond households. As President Huiru highlighted, institutional cooking is an enormous opportunity. Schools and hospitals can become market anchors, aggregating demand, creating investable opportunities, and providing solutions at scale. Colleagues, as we leave New York and look towards the next Clean Cooking Summit in Nairobi, we cannot lose focus. We cannot not invest in clean cooking. If there's a moment to do so, it is this moment. Governments face competing, complex issues, but this momentum on clean cooking is too valuable to let pass. We must turn it into immediate and lasting action, and as I said, with the funding to match. The true measure of our success is not how often clean cooking appears on the international stage. The true measure of our success is how we use this stage to support countries to deliver at scale. Thank you.

And that marks the end of our event. Have a good evening.