What Tanzania should do to promote clean cooking

Dar es Salaam. For Tanzania to achieve universal energy access to clean cooking by 2030, the country needs to address policy, strategy and regulations as they are still insufficient to ensure its sustainable use, according to a new report.
The UN report – ‘Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2022’ – lists Tanzania among 20 high-impact countries, where access to energy is limited.
The study indicated that unless clean cooking finds a lasting place on the political agenda, the majority of the population will continue to rely on traditional ways of cooking by 2030, which will have adverse consequences on the environment, economic development and health, particularly that of women and children.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 7 calls for the adoption and continued use of clean-burning stoves by the 2.9 billion people relying on unclean fuels including both biomass and kerosene.
In Tanzania, at least 96 percent of the population relies on unclean cooking oil, which is harmful to human health as Particulate Matter (PM) retained in the lungs, is linked to respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer.
Therefore, the report suggested that overcoming barriers to clean oil adoption and continued use is critical for helping to prevent these illnesses and untimely deaths. When reached for comment, Dr Juma Mujungu, an activist for climate change, said: “Just eight years left before 2030, Tanzania remains far off track to meet the said goal by ensuring access to affordable, reliable sustainable, and modern energy for its people.”
“Having effective policy and regulations, will create a viable market for clean energy such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) which requires clear regulations to ensure public safety and give the private sector sufficient confidence in its ability to generate its required returns on investment,” he further explained.
Adding that: “Such effective LPG policies need to be designed through a multi-stakeholder approach, allowing the government to effectively define and communicate policies to consumers and a range of other stakeholders.”
But for the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA), a non-profit organization operating with the support of the United Nations Foundation, has indicated that providing clean energy to households is critical to achieving global climate and sustainable development goals.
(CCA) which works to promote clean cooking technologies in lower and middle-income countries, backed the UN report saying: “This is the moment to prioritize access to clean cooking solutions in global and national arenas and dramatically scale up public and private financing.
Within the frame of the United Nations’ High-Level Dialogue on Energy, CCA has launched a multi-stakeholder Energy Compact to ‘Unlock the SDGs and Net-Zero with Clean Cooking.’
According to the organisation, changing the way families cook their food each day will slow climate change, drive gender equality, reduce poverty and provide enormous health benefits. Quite simply, there can be no just energy transition without universal access to clean cooking.