Africa’s efforts to expand access to clean cooking may be undermined by inadequate investment in fuel supply infrastructure and a heavy reliance on debt to finance the energy transition, industry stakeholders have warned.
The concerns come as about 970 million people in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to clean cooking, while roughly 80 per cent of international public clean energy finance to developing countries in 2024 was provided as debt, against just 5 per cent in the form of guarantees. The figures, presented in a briefing for the 25th WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh, highlight the financing and infrastructure challenges confronting African countries seeking to expand cleaner energy access while keeping it affordable for households.
Africa requires around $2 billion a year in upfront investment to close its clean cooking access gap by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. Yet annual financing remains far below what is needed, with debt-based financing continuing to be the main form of international public clean energy finance, accounting for about 80 per cent of total flows in 2024. The financing gap is not primarily a reflection of limited resource potential or lack of demand, but rather of financial, institutional and risk-related barriers that deter investment. Africa receives only about 2 per cent of global clean energy investment, despite accounting for roughly 18 per cent of the world’s population and possessing some of the most significant renewable energy resources globally.
The Executive Secretary of the African Refiners and Distributors Association (ARDA), Anibor Kragha, at the WPC Energy Congress advocated for greater investment in fuel logistics, including import terminals, storage depots and bottling plants, as a way to improve supply reliability and accelerate the transition to cleaner cooking. Without sufficient storage and distribution infrastructure, supply disruptions and price spikes could force households to return to charcoal and other polluting fuels.
The Middle East crisis, particularly the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has exposed a fuel-security risk to Africa’s clean-cooking transition, triggering product shortages and price hikes for clean cooking consumers in developing countries. This underscores the vulnerability of a transition that depends heavily on imported fuels without robust local storage and distribution systems.
Africa has secured an additional $900 million in financial commitments to expand access to clean cooking, building on the $2.2 billion mobilised at the inaugural Africa Clean Cooking Summit in Paris in 2024 and bringing total commitments to more than $3.1 billion. As of June 2026, about $740 million of this amount had been disbursed to projects across 30 African countries, with 84 per cent coming from the private sector and 16 per cent from governments.
Despite this progress, nearly four in five households in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to cleaner cooking solutions, and the access gap continues to widen as population growth outpaces new connections. The challenge is not only mobilising more capital, but ensuring it reaches the infrastructure and last-mile delivery needed to make clean cooking affordable and reliable.
Carbon finance has emerged as a key mechanism for scaling clean cooking, with most carbon finance in Africa directed at clean-cooking projects. However, incomplete regulatory frameworks and unclear authorisation processes create a bottleneck where projects are ready to scale but financing cannot flow at the speed or volume required.
For African policymakers, the message is clear: closing the clean cooking gap requires not just more money, but smarter money — investment that addresses fuel logistics, reduces risk and makes clean cooking affordable for the households that need it most. Without this, the continent risks seeing its clean cooking ambitions stall under the weight of financing and infrastructure constraints.
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