President of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwunmi Adesina said that annual funding of $4bn is required to avert approximately 600,000 women and children annual deaths in Africa.
Speaking at the 2025 two-day Africa Energy Summit in Dar Salam, Tanzania themed: “Mission 300”, Adesina said lack of access to clean cooking sources claims the lives of 300,000 children and 300,000 women annually.
Speaking at the conference which ended on Tuesday, January 28, Adesina attributed the death to emanating ailments as a result of smoke from used firewood and charcoal.
This fate in Africa, Adesina lamented shouldn’t be the fate of women who just want to cook and survive.
“Another thing that is part of the agenda is access to clean cooking for women. Today we have 1.2 billion women in Africa without access to clean cooking and we lose 300,000 kids every single year that their mothers carry on their backs because of lack of access to clean food because of the secondary effect of smoke.
“We lose 300,000 women also every year.
“Why should anybody have to die just for trying to cook a decent meal that is taken for granted in other parts of the world? That is not acceptable! In good conscience, we just can’t do that.
“And that’s why a big part of what we’re trying to do is to make sure that women in Africa can cook decently without having to have smoke; without their kids having to die because of that.”
Revealing AfDB’s effort in addressing the survival challenges in Africa, he said out of the required annual
$4bn to ameliorate the situation, AfDB has committed $2bn to this course.
“We had a meeting together with the International Energy Agency, and we said we needed to raise $4bn a year.
“It’s all it’s going to take, $4 billion a year. And we at the African Development Bank committed to $2 billion towards that.
“It is about lives. A lot of time we talk about Energy transition, but it is not just about energy transition.
“Already women in Africa, are transitioning life just to be able to cook. It is more about dignity as far as I am concerned. Africa must develop with dignity, with pride. Its women must have access to clean cooking solutions” he said.
In addition, Adesina revealed that Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, and some other African countries have pledged to “100 per cent access to clean cooking solutions by 2030.”
Mission 300 is an initiative of the AfDB and the World Bank aimed at providing electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030 through African leadership, increased funding, and accelerated partnerships.
