Alliance champions shine a light on clean cooking at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity
Participants at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity got an unexpected lesson in clean cooking at the influential event this year, which celebrates the power of creativity as a force for business, change and for good.
The week-long festival attracts thousands of the best minds in creative communications, advertising, design and technology. This year, the issue of clean cooking was brought into the spotlight, with two Alliance Champions featured on two high profile panels hosted by McCann Health and United Nations Foundation.
Grammy-nominated musician Rocky Dawuni joined Bangladesh market manager Asna Towfiq on a roundtable on Populism and Creativity, which explored how the public and private sectors are coming together to develop creative solutions to reduce the effects of cooking smoke on the environment, and to improve the lives of women and children in the developing world.
Towfiq and Dawuni were also featured in a panel discussion on How Creativity and Clean Cooking Can Save Lives, which was facilitated by the UN Foundation’s executive director of public affairs Caleb Tiller. The panel explored how behavior change communication and advocacy are helping drive demand and increase adoption of cleaner cookstoves and fuels.
Towfiq’s expertise in gender and behavior change and extensive work with private and public-sector stakeholders paired with Dawuni’s advocacy, cultural diplomacy, and successful melding of music and activism made for an enlightening and entertaining panel discussion. Among the topics covered were the importance of awareness raising campaigns in driving adoption of cleaner cookstoves and fuels and how to use public platforms to advocate for important issues.
“Cooking is about pride and tradition,” Dawuni said. “We have to be able to communicate to someone who sees the act of cooking through love and passion that the way they cook is actually harming their family. And that they have access to the tools they need to make things better.”
Established in 1954, the 64th International Festival of Creativity takes place in June in Cannes, France. This year’s event attracted 15,000 people from over 100 countries and included more brand leaders than ever before, as well as the world’s most innovative tech companies, startups and creative people.