Urgent action is needed

With fewer than ten years until we reach 2030, the world remains far off track to meet SDG7 — which commits to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Nearly 2.6 billion people still lack access to modern cooking solutions, and the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to reverse progress and further exacerbate inequalities. To date, the level of commitment and investment in clean cooking has not matched the global magnitude of the challenge.

Considering the annual toll on human health, forests, climate and local economies, clean cooking solutions should be central to global strategies and to national recovery plans. Changing the way families cook their food each day will slow climate change and deforestation, drive gender equality, reduce poverty, and provide enormous health benefits. The next twelve months are critically important year for energy and international development.

The UN High- Level Dialogue on Energy, the 26th UN Climate Conference (COP 26) and the Africa-Europe political summit of heads of state in early 2022 give world leaders an opportunity to make momentous progress on climate protection, health, the environment, and women’s empowerment. Ambitious commitments and concrete actions to achieve universal access to clean cooking will be one of the most significant levers to achieving both climate and development goals.

Access to modern energy, including electricity and clean cooking, is increasingly recognised as a key enabler of economic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. Electricity, in particular, can drive economic and social development by increasing productivity, enabling new types of job-creating enterprises and reducing household workloads, hence freeing up time for paid work.

Productive uses of electricity are particularly important for income generation and poverty reduction among consumers, but also essential for the financial viability of electricity suppliers whether on or off-grid.

When electricity is only used for lighting during a few hours in the evening, as often happens in poor rural communities, expensive power generation and distribution infrastructure remain idle for most of the day.

This leaves electricity providers with two undesirable alternatives: either recover upfront investments by charging expensive tariffs for the few kWh consumed; or charge affordable tariffs but face bankruptcy. When electricity is used productively during the length of the working day, upfront costs can be shared among more kWh and cheaper tariffs are possible. At the same time, the resulting income improves consumers’ ability to pay, starting a virtuous circle of affordability and financial sustainability.

2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This report was made possible through contributions, dedication, hard work and collaboration of several stakeholders, individuals and organizations. Many thanks to all of them.

Special gratitude should be paid to ENERGIA, the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, for funding this project and particularly the support received from Sheila Oparaocha, ENERGIA Programme Manager who provided valuable comments and supported the team to re-conceptualize the approach. The National Gender and Sustainable Energy Network (NGSEN) appreciate the support and trust paid by ENERGIA. NGSEN also express much gratefulness to The Hivos global office in the Netherlands and Regional office in Kenya for continuous support and in particular through the Strategic Partnership- Energy Programme which enabled smooth undertaking of this study.

Our thanks also go to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Ms. Juliana Pallangyo for allowing one of the staff (Ms. Nyaso Makwaya) from the department of Renewable Energy to work closely with NGSEN team on this assignment. Ms. Makwaya has worked hand in hand with NGSEN during the preparation of the tools up to the finalization of this report.

The team wishes to sincerely thank the RE-SENERGY team and its leaders in Tanzania for the opportunity granted to carry out this assignment. In particular the team wish to thank the GIZ RE SENERGY Programme Manager - Mr Sven Ernedal for his very wonderful comments and in arranging for the team to meet all the people whom are mentioned in the report.

In particular the team wants to single out the support received from Jan Söhlemann, the Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator of the Energizing Development (EnDev) and Sustainable Energy for Development (SED) in Bangladesh who not only took time to meet with the team and to discuss the zero drafts but also who made valuable comments and supported the team to re-conceptualize the approach.

Though the team takes full responsibility of the content of this report, Jan played a crucial role in ensuring that the team had the correct focus on what is required.