Accel­er­at­ing the uptake of clean fuel sources for cook­ing is an urgent inter­na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty under Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal 7 to “ensure access to afford­able, reli­able, sus­tain­able and mod­ern ener­gy for all”. The link between the use of pol­lut­ing fuels for cook­ing and neg­a­tive health, liveli­hoods, and envi­ron­men­tal out­comes – par­tic­u­lar­ly for women and chil­dren – has been exten­sive­ly doc­u­ment­ed. What is less clear is how the tra­jec­to­ries of glob­al cook­ing fuel tran­si­tions will change as the Glob­al South con­tin­ues to rapid­ly and inequitably urban­ize.

Pover­ty is urban­iz­ing on the African con­ti­nent. Over 60% of Africa’s 560 mil­lion urban­ites live in infor­mal set­tle­ments that are over­crowd­ed, lack water and/​or san­i­ta­tion, or have inse­cure land tenure, among oth­er fac­tors defined by the Unit­ed Nations. Exist­ing research shows that ener­gy tran­si­tions among infor­mal pop­u­la­tions are slow and uneven, with many con­tin­u­ing to rely on fuels like fire­wood and char­coal to meet their dai­ly cook­ing needs. Because of the near-uni­ver­sal cov­er­age of grid net­works in urban areas, elec­tric cook­ing (eCook­ing) is being increas­ing­ly seen as a viable tran­si­tion fuel for these communities.

The Glob­al Elec­tric Cook­ing Coali­tion (GeC­Co), launched at COP28 by its anchor part­ners, the Glob­al Ener­gy Alliance for Peo­ple and Plan­et (GEAPP), Ener­gis­ing Devel­op­ment (EnDev), Sus­tain­able Ener­gy for All (SEforALL), and Mod­ern Ener­gy Cook­ing Ser­vices (MECS) Pro­gramme, is a major advance­ment in glob­al efforts to scale eCook­ing adop­tion. GeC­Co has announced the ambi­tious objec­tive of tran­si­tion­ing at least 10% of the pop­u­la­tion to eCook­ing in at least 10 coun­tries across sub-Saha­ran Africa, Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean, by 2030. GeC­Co is part of a larg­er groundswell of efforts to pro­mote eCook­ing, such as ASCENT by the World Bank and IRENA’s launch of a review of e‑Cooking poten­tial at COP28. GeC­Co is set to unlock sub­stan­tial resources for eCook­ing efforts, but the big ques­tion is: Who will ben­e­fit from eCooking?