Hajia Samira Bawumia, wife of the Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has indicated that cooking brings families together and has cultural and social significance around the world.
According to her, more than 2.5 billion people in the world continue to rely on wood, coal, charcoal, agriculture residues, or animal dung to cook their meals and heat their homes.
“Cooking is a fundamental part of life. It is an activity that brings families together and has cultural and social significance around the world. Yet, globally, especially in some developing countries, more than 2.5 billion continue to rely on wood, coal, charcoal, agriculture residues, or animal dung to cook their meals and heat their homes.
“These homes become dangerous places to be, simply because the energy sources they use release high levels of pollutants that are harmful to their health,” Samira Bawumia said at a Clean Cooking Alliance program organised in Accra.
She added, the lack of access to clean cooking remains acute in sub-Saharan Africa.
She noted that Africa is the only region where the number of those without access to clean cooking continues to rise.
“The share of those with access just increased from fifteen percent (15%) in 2015 to seventeen percent (17%) in 2020. However, population growth pushed up the number of people without access by 10 percent from eight hundred and fifty (850) million to around nine hundred and forty (940) million in 2020. And if these trends continue, it can be estimated that in 2030 Sub-Saharan Africa will have the greatest access deficit.
“The simple act of cooking [using unclean fuels and technology] is a leading source of global air pollution and causes more deaths each year than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined, it is one of the most underfunded – and furthest behind – indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), receiving less than one percent of the estimated resources needed to address it.
“New research from the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Climate Analytics highlights that we remain far off track in achieving universal access by 2030. The SEforAll estimates that, for Ghana, the full transition from wood and charcoal to clean fuels could take 50 years or more. And by 2030 only 40 percent of the population will reach improved cookstoves access, and only 18 percent will achieve clean fuels access,” Hajia Bawumia explained.
This, she said, means the business-as-usual approach has not been as effective as should be. “So much more needs to be done.”
“Air pollution causes more than 7 million deaths every year with 1.1 million deaths occurring in Africa. Household air pollution which is driven largely by indoor cookstoves accounted for seven hundred thousand (700,000) fatalities, while increased outdoor air pollution claimed four hundred thousand (400,000) lives. In Ghana, the World Bank estimates that sixteen thousand (16,000) people die prematurely from air pollution every year. Each number in these millions represents a mother, father, son, daughter, or friend who is loved by his / her loved ones. These deaths are avoidable and unacceptable,” Samira Bawumia observed.
Hajia Samira Bawumia