Nairobi will become the centre of Africa’s clean cooking discussions in January when Kenya hosts the second Africa Clean Cooking Summit.
President William Ruto announced that the summit will take place on January 27 and 28, 2027, bringing together governments, development partners, investors and private-sector players to accelerate access to cleaner cooking solutions across the continent.
The meeting will be co-hosted by Kenya, Norway and the United States, alongside the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other African and international partners.
Ruto made the announcement during a high-level clean cooking event held on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 22.
From promises to projects
The Nairobi summit is expected to put greater emphasis on implementation and investment.
Ruto said participants should arrive with specific actions rather than additional declarations, including approved policies, procurement processes, financing, investments or projects that can move clean cooking programmes forward.
The approach follows growing concern that commitments made at international meetings are not always translated into projects that reach households and institutions.
The IEA says nearly one billion people across Africa still lack access to clean cooking, while polluting cooking fuels are associated with about 850,000 premature deaths every year.
At the July 2026 virtual meeting held ahead of the summit, partners announced a further $900 million in financial commitments for clean cooking in Africa.
This was added to the $2.2 billion mobilised at the first Africa Clean Cooking Summit in Paris in 2024. The IEA said $740 million of the earlier commitments had already been deployed across 22 African countries.
Kenya identifies $600 million opportunity
Kenya is also positioning its public institutions as a major market for clean cooking investment.
Ruto said the country has launched an Institutional Clean Cooking Investment Pack that identifies about $600 million in potential investment across schools, healthcare facilities and correctional institutions.
The initiative is intended to turn the demand for cleaner cooking in public institutions into projects that investors can finance.
The President has argued that financing models, policy support and partnerships will be necessary to make such projects commercially viable and expand access.
Kenya is also pursuing what Ruto described as a multi-fuel approach, taking into account different markets, available technologies and consumer preferences.
Summit follows postponed meeting
The Nairobi meeting was initially expected to take place earlier in 2026 but was postponed. A high-level virtual session was subsequently held in July to review progress and announce new commitments.
The January summit will therefore provide an opportunity for governments and development partners to assess what has happened since the Paris meeting and determine how to accelerate delivery.
The International Energy Agency, African Union and African Development Bank are among the organisations involved in the broader clean cooking initiative.
A wider health and climate issue
Clean cooking is increasingly being treated as more than an energy-access issue.
The continued reliance on charcoal, firewood and other polluting fuels has implications for health, household welfare, forests and climate goals. The IEA estimates that nearly one billion Africans remain without access to clean cooking.
At the New York meeting, Ruto also acknowledged that millions of people depend economically on traditional cooking fuels, saying the transition would need to take their livelihoods into account.
The Nairobi summit will come as African countries seek to attract more climate and development finance while expanding energy access.
For Kenya, the meeting will also provide an opportunity to showcase its own investment pipeline and push for financing that can move clean cooking from international commitments into projects that can be implemented at scale.
