Radha’s Message for May 2016
Dear Friends,
May has been extremely busy as we continue working to mainstream clean cooking into health, gender and environment interventions that support national and global goals. This month focused on the gender and humanitarian sectors.
Efforts to prioritize clean cookstoves and fuels within the gender community saw a major boost in May through broad participation at Women Deliver, the world's largest global gathering to focus on the health, rights and well-being of girls and women. Together with numerous partners, the Alliance joined high-level discussions, showcased the latest clean cooking technology in the WD Exhibition Hall, and co-hosted events, including an official side event with UNICEF and Speak Up Africa on collaborative approaches to reduce pneumonia, with a spotlight on clean cooking. In a related gender event in Washington, DC, the Alliance teamed with the Embassy of Finland to advocate for clean energy access as a key driver for sustainable development, particularly for girls and women.
This week, the first ever World Humanitarian Summit took place in Istanbul, providing an ideal opportunity to advocate for the importance of clean cooking and energy access for people living in humanitarian settings. In addition to hosting two exhibition booths, including one with the SAFE Humanitarian Working Group, the Alliance co-hosted an event with the UN, governments, and international NGOs on how to better ensure energy access remains a higher priority of humanitarian response.
This month, we also launched the partner survey for the annual Results Report. We are asking that all those eligible participate in the survey, which is part of global efforts to track progress and growth in the cookstoves and fuels sector. Each submission will be aggregated, anonymized, and shared in the Annual Results Report being released later this year to help demonstrate the global progress being made towards the adoption of cleaner, more efficient cooking technologies and fuels.
In other sector news, Prime Minister Modi made a significant announcement this month launching an ambitious plan to connect 50 million Indian families to cooking gas over the next three years. A clean cooking program of this scale is unprecedented and we look forward to continuing to support the government and in-country stakeholders and partners to achieve this ambitious vision.
For next month, we look forward to joining Alliance Global Ambassador Chef Jose Andres and members of the Chef Corps at the inaugural FoodLovesTech event in New York to talk about innovation and investment for the sector. And finally, I want to leave you with a lovely video of Alliance Leadership Council Chair Hillary Clinton talking about clean cookstoves with a team of nurses at a hospital in the U.S. We thank Secretary Clinton and all of our Leadership Council Members for their continued work to help build a thriving global market for clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels.
Sincerely,
Radha