Effects of clean cooking energy on women, mothers and children

By Nelly Nwabudike

Discussions around the use of energy cookstoves in preference to other methods of cooking, including gas and electricity, is gaining traction, not only in Nigeria but also across Africa.

This is because of its overall benefits to women, mothers and children, particularly those in rural communities, in terms of safety and availability.

At a recent event in Kenya, where the closure of a high-profile cooking company, was a talking point, the importance of using energy cookstoves came to the fore.

Participants extensively discussed and agreed that companies like BURN Manufacturing Limited, which is involved in mass production of clean energy cookstoves in Nigeria and across Africa, needs to be supported. This is because the cost is the only impediments to its availability across African households.

Apart from that, it is safe, clean, easy to use and highly efficient and does not pose any danger to human lives and the environment, unlike gas or electricity.

The bottom line in this emerging cooking method to African households is that rural women, mothers and children, could easily use it without endangering their lives. All it requires are charcoal and mothers and their children are close to a sumptuous meal.

However, the reality is that there is currently no better mechanism to deliver clean cooking solutions to sub-Saharan Africa’s 1.2 billion people, than using energy cookstoves being advanced by BURN.

Although it has an affordability problem, carbon finance is a viable solution to solving that problem at a large scale because carbon credits can discount the upfront cost of a clean cooking appliance by 50 to 90 percent.

The importance of clean cooking energy to mothers and children, particularly in the rural areas, cannot be over-emphasised. The only snag is that the rural poor can’t afford a $50 cookstove but can afford it when discounted at $3.

And that is where the government funding comes in. So, while it would be nice if governments could fund it, that’s highly unlikely, as it would cost $10 billion of tax receipts to deliver clean cooking to every household on the continent of Africa.

Fortunately, carbon finance provides the upfront discount and generates additional revenue from the sale of the credits that can be reinvested into making even more cooking appliances. This lowers the $10 billion government expenditure to a $3 billion upfront investment of private or public capital and this has the potential to generate 10 times above that in revenue.

So, apart from providing safety for women, mothers and children, especially those in rural communities, the revenue could be used to develop Africa.

Expert opinions are that carbon finance, done right, is the ultimate win-win because households would get a life-saving clean cooking product they could never otherwise afford. The governments would increase their coffers as opposed to having them drained by subsidies and billions of dollars of new investment and revenue from carbon sales would come to the continent.

It will even be better when carbon projects are funded by public investment capital, which utilizes carbon credits to subsidize the cost of clean cooking. So, carbon finance for clean cooking remains the best and only way to scale clean cooking.

The good news is that, even though the carbon markets have been in doldrums in the last two years, at the end of 2025, we saw two game-changing developments in the carbon market, which is the formalization of compliance markets such as Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) and the first issuance of high-integrity Critical Control Point (CCP) voluntary credits for cookstoves.

However, energy experts are of the view that a carbon credit subsidy, like any investment, has some inherent risk because the majority of clean cooking carbon finance is a low-risk, one-time subsidy, usually as a price discount on the hardware.

So, a $50 discount could be easily recouped over five to 10 years of carbon sales, but a riskier model is to have an ongoing fuel subsidy, whether it is for LPG, pellets or ethanol.

It’s not impossible, but it requires selling fuel at a loss. This model needs guaranteed carbon credit offtakes, usually at over $20 price point. But by simply avoiding any one of these pitfalls, clean cooking will deliver on its goal to transform the lives of more than a billion people.

After careful consideration and analysis, we humbly submit that clean cookstove is the way to go, particularly for the rural women with children in their care as it guarantees their safety. With special focus on cities, towns and states outside Lagos, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

•Nwabudike writes from Lagos