Bringing clean, safe, affordable cooking energy to Kenyan households: an agenda for action

The document highlights that 76% of Kenyans rely on traditional biomass for cooking, leading to significant public health crises and economic losses. It argues that while Kenya is a leader in clean cookstove distribution, large-scale transformation requires removing market barriers, such as high import duties, and regulating the charcoal sector. The brief recommends a shift from end-user subsidies to upstream value chain support and the adoption of human-centered design to ensure long-term stove usage.

• In Kenya, 76% of the population relies on traditional biomass for cooking, which results in severe public health consequences, including an estimated 15,000 premature deaths annually linked to indoor air pollution.
• The economic burden of solid-fuel dependence in sub-Saharan Africa is immense; in a worst-case scenario, combined health, economic, and environmental impacts reach nearly US$60 billion per year, with economic costs alone accounting for US$36.9 billion (2.8% of GDP).
• Kenya is situated within an East African "hotspot" of unsustainable biomass use, where charcoal demand driven by rapid urbanization puts heavy pressure on forests. The charcoal sector in Kenya employs approximately 700,000 people and is valued at 135 billion KSH (about US$1.3 billion).
• Government policies in Kenya can act as barriers to clean energy adoption; for example, a 25% import duty on cookstoves, combined with VAT and railroad tax, increases the cost of stoves by approximately 47%, hindering affordability and local manufacturing.
• Successful cookstove initiatives require a commercial, demand-driven approach rather than reliance on free distribution or high subsidies, focusing on stove quality, end-user finance, and human-centered design to prevent households from reverting to traditional methods.
• To achieve market transformation, the document recommends that governments remove taxes on imported clean technologies, regulate the charcoal sector to ensure sustainable production, and target subsidies upstream in the value chain (R&D and manufacture) rather than downstream to the end-user.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2016). Bringing clean, safe, affordable cooking energy to Kenyan households: an agenda for action. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-NCE-DB-2016-Kenya-Clean-Cooking.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Bringing clean, safe, affordable cooking energy to Kenyan households: an agenda for action. 2016. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-NCE-DB-2016-Kenya-Clean-Cooking.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Bringing clean, safe, affordable cooking energy to Kenyan households: an agenda for action |date=2016 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-NCE-DB-2016-Kenya-Clean-Cooking.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2016bringing, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Bringing clean, safe, affordable cooking energy to Kenyan households: an agenda for action}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2016}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-NCE-DB-2016-Kenya-Clean-Cooking.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }