Get Guardian on GoogleAMID the rising costs pushing some families back to firewood and charcoal, the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cooking (NACC) has called for measures to lower cooking gas prices and make clean fuels affordable and accessible to households.
The Chairman, BACC Board of Trustees, Mr Ewah Eleri, made the call at the Nigeria Clean Cooking Forum in Abuja, organised by the alliance in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment and development partners, with the theme, “Clean Cooking Energy for All in Nigeria: Unlocking and Diversifying Finance for Nigeria’s Clean Cooking Transition.”
Eleri said rising cooking fuel costs and weak household purchasing power were reversing progress towards cleaner energy, forcing families to abandon gas for traditional fuels.
According to him, “more Nigerian families are climbing down the energy ladder, abandoning their gas cylinders in favour of fuelwood in open fire. Such a reversal would undermine efforts to improve household health, protect forests and advance Nigeria’s climate objectives.”
For his part, the Minister of Environment, Balarabe Lawal, called for increased investment in the clean cooking sector, saying that substantially more capital was needed to accelerate the shift from traditional fuels to cleaner alternatives.
Also, the General Coordinator and Head of Office for Spanish Cooperation in Nigeria and ECOWAS (AECID), Santiago Ormeño, called for regional cooperation to expand access to clean cooking across West Africa.
Congratulating Nigeria on developing its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0), Ormeño said the framework offered an opportunity to position clean cooking as a viable industry and a tool for tackling climate change, adding that the sector’s challenges crossed national borders and required coordinated responses.
Ormeño stressed that affordability remained a major barrier for households across West Africa, urging stakeholders to address the cost of cleaner cooking technologies and fuels.
Meanwhile, the Implementation Manager of the Nigeria Energy Support Group at the German development agency, GIZ, Joshua Garba, called for greater private-sector investment and stronger collaboration among government, development partners and industry players, saying that Nigeria would need substantial private capital and coordinated action to achieve its clean cooking targets.
Also, the Director-General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Farouk Salim, said product standardisation was essential to consumer protection and public confidence in clean energy technologies.
Represented by Pius Manji, Salim said standards provide benchmarks for assessing the performance, efficiency and reliability of clean cooking equipment and other energy systems.
