Understanding the clean cooking policy challenge in sub-Saharan Africa using a geospatial approach

Abstract Universal clean cooking is one of the key targets under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, and has implications for several other SDGs, such as good health and well-being, gender equality and the climate goals. Yet, 2.6 billion people globally still lack access to clean cooking. The situation is especially dire in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where only 16% use clean stoves and fuels. We develop, and apply to SSA, the first open-source spatial tool comparing the relative potential of different cookstoves based on their costs and benefits. Our results suggest a severe market failure as the currently most used solution, traditional cookstoves, have the lowest social net-benefit nearly everywhere in SSA. Correcting this failure would deliver significant health, time and emission benefits. The presence of severe market failures and behavioral obstacles require targeted policies to both increase the understanding and internalize benefits and externalities from the adoption of clean cooking.