Radha’s Message for March 2016
This month, we saw a major focus from the global health and gender communities around the need to expand access to clean cookstoves and fuels.
In a new report, the World Health Organization highlighted reducing the use of solid fuels for cooking as a cost-effective and immediate action countries can take to help reverse the upward trend of environment-related disease and deaths. The report showed nearly a quarter of all deaths were related to living or working in an unhealthy environment, providing further evidence of the urgent need to address household air pollution as a way to improve global health. The WHO study also offers a fitting lead in to World Health Day on April 7, which the Alliance and others will be using to drive attention toward the widespread health benefits of clean cooking technologies and fuels.
March also saw a renewed emphasis on how clean cooking can impact the lives of girls and women. Many of our partners from around the world joined the Alliance to help celebrate International Women’s Day at events, online, and on social media. Prominent male champions, including Bill Clinton, Hugh Jackman, Nick Hurd, Narayana Murthy, Chad Holliday, Akinwumi Adesina, and José Andrés, among others, talked about why the care about clean cooking as part of a widely-read article 20 Men Who Care About Clean Cooking.
In addition, global leaders convened at the annual Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York Mar 14-24. As part of the event, the Alliance joined with partners to host two panel discussions. The events engaged development actors working on gender equality to showcase how incorporating access to energy into their organizations’ goals and missions can enable and strengthen impact for women and girls, especially reducing time poverty, unpaid work and drudgery, exposure to gender-based violence, and increase economic empowerment opportunities.
India’s finance minister provided his support on the issue, saying that, for too long, “Women of India have faced the curse of smoke during the process of cooking. The time has come to remedy this situation.” Backing his words with action Minister Sri Jaitley announced in early March that India is committing significant resources in their budget to providing universal access to cooking gas. This is a major step toward addressing India’s air quality issues and improving health while also enabling the country to serve as an example for others working to ensure cooking no longer kills.
Looking ahead, I would like to invite you to join the Alliance in commemorating World Health Day on April 7. It’s a great opportunity to help spread the word about how clean cookstoves and fuels can save lives and deliver dramatic impacts on health. On April 22, I also encourage you to help celebrate the expected signing of the Paris Agreement on climate and remind key audiences that clean cooking is already supporting climate change mitigation and environmental sustainability, while also providing energy, health, and empowerment gains that particularly benefit girls and women.
Thanks for your continued support.
Warm regards,
@Radha_Muthiah