Clean Cooking Alliance Releases Initial Findings of Systems Strategy
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 2, 2021 – To catalyze action and facilitate much needed coordination across the clean cooking sector, the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA), together with partners, has developed an emerging Clean Cooking Systems Strategy for achieving universal access by 2030. The Systems Strategy calls on governments, donors, finance institutions and the private sector to prioritize clean cooking in this critical year of the United Nation’s High-level Dialogue on Energy and COP 26, and accelerate commitment, funding, and action to finally match the scale of this global challenge.
“Clean cooking needs to be more prominent in policy dialogues and have bigger and bolder national plans to accelerate country action,” said Dag-Inge Ulstein, Minister of International Development at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “This is the right time for the Systems Strategy to guide those national plans and elevate clean cooking as an important opportunity to deliver urgently needed climate, health, and economic outcomes through true collective action.”
Launched in mid-2020, the Systems Strategy development has completed two initial phases, including extensive consultations with stakeholders to understand the near- and medium-term needs of the sector and to identify the priority transformations needed to dramatically scale impact.
“We heard stakeholders across the clean cooking system continuously highlight the need for a more coordinated strategy to drive greater collaboration and alignment toward shared goals,” says Dymphna van der Lans, CEO of the Clean Cooking Alliance. “In response to this call for action, the Clean Cooking Alliance has led the development of the Systems Strategy on behalf of the entire clean cooking ecosystem to secure commitment and mobilize collective action in this critical year and beyond.”
The Systems Strategy represents a bold vision for achieving universal access by 2030. Working with partners across the ecosystem, CCA is embarking on the final phase of work to co-create and launch a number of initiatives and is inviting all interested collaborators to join in bringing this Systems Strategy to life.
“During such a critical year for the energy transition, we need bold action to ensure we leave no one behind,” said Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. “As we deal with the ongoing challenges of COVID-19, and the ever-growing impacts of climate change, the need to accelerate progress on clean cooking has never been more important.”
The Systems Strategy proposes nineteen initiatives to transform the clean cooking ecosystem. These include a new accelerator to scale the use of results-based financing mechanisms, a new initiative to generate and integrate deeper behavioral insights into the design of policies and cooking solutions, and new programs to advance faster national level action through improved governmental coordination. Additional initiatives build upon existing efforts of partners, including initiatives that expand the use of data and evidence to inform action, and initiatives that unlock new climate funding for clean cooking. Together these initiatives will create a more effective ecosystem that better delivers the clean and affordable solutions that households increasingly demand.
Importantly, findings from the Systems Strategy are already feeding into this year’s high-level political forums, including the UN High-level Dialogue on Energy, the Health & Energy Platform of Action, and COP 26. This work is elevating the issue of clean cooking and providing recommendations that can be taken forward as concrete commitments in the High-Level Dialogue Energy Compacts and Nationally Determined Contributions toward achieving the Paris Agreement.
The System Strategy is being developed by CCA, through extensive collaboration with partners, and made possible through the support of NORAD, and in partnership with Dalberg. CCA recently hosted a webinar that highlighted the latest findings and outlined next steps.
In addition, SEforALL CEO Damilola Ogunbiyi joined CCA CEO Dymphna van der Lans recently to publish an op-ed on the Systems Strategy titled “Progress on clean cooking is too slow. That must change.”