• Nairobi will host the summit in 2026, co-organized with Norway, the United States, and the IEA

• Event aims to speed up access to clean cooking for nearly 1 billion Africans

• First summit in Paris mobilized $2.2 billion in public and private commitments

Kenya will host in 2026 the second major International Clean Cooking Summit in Africa, jointly organized with Norway, the United States, and the International Energy Agency (IEA). The event will take place in Nairobi and will bring together governments, companies, and development institutions to accelerate access to clean cooking solutions for nearly 1 billion Africans who still lack them.

The summit will be co-chaired by Kenyan President William Ruto, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

The meeting follows the first Clean Cooking Summit in Africa, held in Paris in May 2024. Co-chaired by Tanzania, Norway, the African Development Bank, and the IEA, the Paris event brought together nearly 60 countries and more than 1,000 delegates. It helped mobilize $2.2 billion in public and private financial commitments, a record level for the sector.

According to an update published by the IEA in July 2025, more than $470 million of the commitments announced in Paris had already been disbursed. The same publication presented an updated roadmap targeting universal access to clean cooking in sub-Saharan Africa by 2040, based on solutions considered technically available and economically affordable.

For sub-Saharan Africa, the challenge remains significant. While the number of people without access to clean cooking has been cut in half globally since 2010, it continues to rise in the region, where four out of five households still rely on polluting fuels. This situation has deep impacts on public health, gender equality, economic development, and the environment.

In this context, by hosting the 2026 summit, Kenya is positioning itself as a central player in this emerging continental agenda, at a time when major powers and international institutions are paying growing attention to an issue that long remained marginal in energy policies.

Abdoullah Diop