NIGERIA LAUNCHES MISSION 300 CLEAN COOKING TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP, RAISES NATIONAL LPG TARGET TO FIVE MILLION HOUSEHOLDS

The meeting was anchored on Nigeria’s National Energy Compact, presented at the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam in January 2025, which commits the country to raising clean cooking access from 22% to 25% on the path to universal energy access by 2030. An estimated 188 million Nigerians, roughly 78% of the population, currently lack access to clean cooking, while 62% of households still rely on fuelwood. Household air pollution from traditional cooking methods is linked to more than 77,000 deaths a year, making it the third leading cause of death in the country after malaria and HIV.

Delivering his presentation, Diran Adesua, DRE Pillar Lead, Nigeria M300 CDMU, situated the Compact within Mission 300’s continental programme, signed by African governments in Tanzania in January 2025 and built around four national pillars: universal electricity access, universal clean cooking access, a growing share of renewables in the generation mix, and mobilising an estimated US$15.5 billion in private capital for Compact delivery. He outlined the CDMU’s governance structure under the Ministries of Finance and Power and introduced the near-complete Compact Progress Management Platform, which will track implementation by pillar.

Gwladys Boukpessi, Mission 300 Fellow and Clean Cooking Lead at the CDMU, presented the CDMU’s national clean cooking strategy, confirming a technology-inclusive approach: Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as the primary implementation pathway, given its maturity, scalability and strong government backing, and Improved Cookstoves (ICS) as the second strategic priority for rural and low-income communities where LPG adoption remains constrained. E-cooking, bioethanol, biogas and other complementary technologies round out the approach where local context demands them.  Boukpessi formally introduced the Clean Cooking Technical Working Group and its eight focus areas: LPG scale-up; improved cookstove access; complementary clean cooking access; policy, standards and market-enabling environment; financing and private-sector mobilisation; behaviour change and sustained adoption; gender and social inclusion; and data monitoring and delivery.

Financing the Gap: A Draft US$32.8 Billion Plan

Carbon Finance Already at Work

During her virtual presentation, Michelle Hallack, Senior Specialist, Energy Sector Management Assistance Program at the World Bank, framed clean cooking as a core development and energy transition issue rather than a stove-only problem, with major implications for health, gender, climate and poverty.

Of the roughly 2 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean cooking, World Bank analysis suggests that around 1.4 billion could theoretically afford modern cooking services – evidence that affordability is a real but uneven constraint rather than a universal barrier.

She identified seven market failures driving low adoption, stressed that no single technology fits every context, and closed with five priorities for Nigeria. These priorities include segmenting the market, building a technology and business-model portfolio, creating enabling conditions for private investment, using pay-for-results mechanisms, and leading through partnership.

Ewah Otu Eleri, Executive Director of the International Centre for Energy, Environment & Development, presented modelling from Nigeria’s NDC preparation showing that household cooking emissions account for 17% of national emissions, meaning that universal clean cooking access alone could deliver much of Nigeria’s conditional 20% Paris Agreement commitment and save an estimated 30,000 lives annually by 2030. 

He argued that Nigeria’s slow progress is rooted less in technology than in political economy. While this was the first clean cooking meeting to bring the finance, petroleum and power ministries into the same room, institutional ownership remains split among the Ministries of Environment, Petroleum and Power.

“This sector is like an orphan. Everybody claims it, but nobody owns it.” – Ewah Otu Eleri.

The Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources (Gas), represented by Engr. Raphael Chinda presented its four-pillar LPG policy – affordability, availability, accessibility, and adaptability – anchored by micro-distribution centres that reach from urban hubs to remote areas.

In a headline announcement, the Ministry confirmed that its 2030 target has been raised from one million to five million households transitioning to LPG, covering all 774 local government areas, with state-by-state cylinder distribution campaigns already underway.

Fiscal incentives already in place include executive orders removing VAT and import duties on LPG equipment. At the same time, governance is structured around a ministerial Programme Management Office and a National LPG Council chaired by the Vice President.

Dr. Abiola-Awe, Director of the Climate Change Department at the Federal Ministry of Environment, presented the Ministry’s track record on improved cookstoves. She highlighted the National Clean Cooking Policy target of 13% of the cooking energy mix from fuel-efficient biomass cookstoves by 2030, with a 30% ambition under discussion, and a Presidential Initiative that has distributed 3,000 stoves in each of the six geopolitical zones.

The ICS Industry breakout group that followed pressed for a decisive shift away from politically driven free-distribution campaigns toward a commercially viable local manufacturing sector, backed by quality standards, carbon finance and Viability Gap Funding.

Experts stressed the need to shift from viewing improved cookstoves as a charitable giveaway to treating them as a commercially viable industry. By enforcing strict national quality standards, mitigating raw material duties and leveraging carbon finance to fund production infrastructure, Nigeria can build a resilient local manufacturing sector that delivers durable, affordable stoves to millions.

Participants split into four parallel breakout groups – LPG Clean Cooking, ICS Industry, E-Cooking & Complementary Technologies, and Finance Sector – to translate the plenary into concrete, sector-specific priorities:

● LPG Clean Cooking: Focused on formalising intergovernmental coordination among the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, and Rural Electrification Agency; scaling PayGo and cylinder-as-a-service financing; and expanding last-mile micro-distribution infrastructure.

● ICS Industry: Examined institutionalising national quality assurance and testing infrastructure; the transition from free stove distribution to Viability Gap Funding and PayGo models; and securing fiscal and duty relief on local production inputs.

● E-Cooking & Complementary Technologies: Recommended adopting a technology-neutral, context-specific framework spanning LPG, ICS, e-cooking, LP-CNG, bioethanol, biogas and biomass; and building a harmonised national clean cooking data system.

● Finance Sector: Convened by the Federal Ministry of Finance, the group agreed on four objectives – reducing consumer affordability barriers, de-risking private investment, mobilising commercial capital beyond grants and subsidies, and financing both supply- and demand-side needs – and called for fiscal treatment parity for cookstoves alongside existing LPG incentives.

● The Mission 300 Clean Cooking Technical Working Group was formally established, with eight defined focus areas guiding its mandate.

● The CDMU’s two-pathway strategy – LPG as the primary pathway and improved cookstoves as the second – was presented and endorsed, alongside a technology-inclusive posture toward complementary solutions.

● The Ministry of Petroleum Resources confirmed a revised national LPG target of five million households by 2030, up from one million, covering all 774 local government areas.

● A draft five-year financing requirement of US$32.8 billion for universal access, including US$1.2 billion for clean cooking, was presented as a working estimate for stakeholder refinement.

● Carbon finance was affirmed as an active, near-term revenue stream, with Nigeria’s roughly 20 million issued carbon credit units cited as evidence that the market already functions.

● Four breakout groups produced sector-specific barrier analyses and priority-action lists to feed into the Working Group’s initial implementation roadmap.

Participants agreed that near-term priorities include confirming institutional ownership of the clean cooking sector, consolidating fragmented data across government, the private sector and development partners before commissioning new studies, and finalising the Working Group’s governance structure and work plan across its eight focus areas.

Medium-term priorities include developing a blended clean-cooking financing facility, advancing an LPG carbon-market incubation programme, and designing differentiated urban, peri-urban and rural rollout strategies.

Closing the session, facilitators urged the newly formed Working Group’s leadership to consider how the platform will differ to serve as a delivery mechanism rather than another coordination forum, and what concrete progress, 12 months from now, would demonstrate that Nigeria is on track to meet its 2030 targets.

The meeting closed with the Working Group in place, an updated national LPG target, and a consolidated set of priority actions ready to move into the next phase.

The Electricity Hub served as the Working Group’s communications and media partner for the meeting, under the strategic proposition, “From Clean Cooking Commitments to Implementation at Scale.” The Electricity Hub will continue to share insights from the session with relevant government ministries, development finance institutions and private-sector stakeholders as the Working Group moves into implementation.