Delivering electricity and clean cooking for all

Today, 750 million people around the world live without access to electricity, while over 2 billion people continue to rely on harmful cooking fuels such as charcoal, wood, agricultural waste and animal dung – the use of which is a leading cause of premature death and serious health issues in many of the poorest regions of the world.

The IEA is at the forefront of efforts to track and address global gaps in energy access. For more than two decades, the Agency has collected and published data on this subject – with a focus on making energy access universal, secure and affordable. The IEA is supporting financial and policy momentum towards these goals through actions such as the landmark 2024 Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa – organised in 2024 by the IEA and its partners, including the Presidents of Tanzania and Norway and the African Development Bank. The Summit led to $2.2 billion in financial commitments from governments and industry for clean cooking.

More than 1 billion people who currently lack access to clean cooking are in sub-Saharan Africa. Co-chaired by the leaders of the governments of Tanzania and Norway, and the African Development Bank and the IEA, the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, held in May 2024, aimed to address this major inequity and deliver a turning point on this crucial issue.

The Summit – which drew delegates from close to 60 countries, as well as companies and development institutions – set out concrete ways in which these groups can work together to solve the clean cooking challenge this decade. It also mobilised $2.2 billion in financial pledges from governments and the private sector, a record sum dedicated to clean cooking access at a single gathering.

More than $470 million of those commitments ha already been disbursed, IEA analysis published in July 2025 shows. In parallel, 10 out of 12 African governments that took part in the Summit have enacted or implemented new clean cooking policies. And more than 70% of people in Africa without access to clean cooking now live in countries that strengthened their policy frameworks since 2024.

Insufficient capital remains one of the biggest barriers to expanding electricity access for the roughly 600 million people in Africa who currently live without it – representing the vast majority of the global total.

Recent analysis by the IEA features first-of-its-kind tracking of investment flows for new electricity connections, while highlighting essential tools to unlock greater financing for closing the access gap. It finds that despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, mounting pressures on domestic budgets in African countries, and recent cuts to development aid, universal access to electricity across sub-Saharan Africa can be achieved by 2035 with the right enabling conditions and strong action by governments, the private sector and development finance institutions. Drawing on successful strategies that have helped eliminate electricity access gaps in other regions, it outlines how this goal could be realised in practice.