24 September 2026: The African Development Bank Group has called for clean cooking to be treated as a development imperative and a collective responsibility, urging governments and partners to place it at the heart of Africa’s energy transition.

The call came during the High-Level Heads of State Event on Clean Cooking in Africa, held Tuesday 22nd September during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York. Convened by Kenya and Norway, in collaboration with the International Energy Agency, the Clean Cooking Alliance and UN Energy, it was the first time that clean cooking has taken the center stage in the UN General Assembly’s history.

The event brought together heads of state, ministers, multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies and other partners, to raise political ambition and accelerate progress toward universal access to clean cooking across Africa.

Nearly one billion Africans still lack access to clean cooking, forcing many households to rely on wood, charcoal and other traditional biomass fuels that contribute to indoor air pollution, deforestation and lost productivity. Women and children are disproportionately affected, bearing the greatest health risks and spending hours collecting fuel that could otherwise be used for education, work and enterprise.

President William Ruto of Kenya, who addressed the event, said clean cooking should be integrated into national planning across African governments. Kenya will host the second Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in Nairobi in January 2027, where leaders and partners are expected to convert the political momentum generated in New York into concrete investment commitments and implementation plans.

African Development Bank Group Senior Vice President Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, who represented President Sidi Ould Tah, said clean cooking could no longer be treated as a secondary issue in the energy transition.

“How a family cooks affects health, forests, productivity, gender equality, and the daily lives of millions of women and children in Africa,” she said. “It is therefore not a marginal issue; it is central to development, climate action and human dignity.”

Mission 300 — the joint initiative between the African Development Bank Group and the World Bank Group to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030 — has helped shift the conversation on household energy access, Akin-Olugbade said. She said all 36 National Energy Compacts adopted to date by African countries within the initiative now include clean cooking ambitions, with countries pursuing a range of pathways including improved cookstoves, liquefied petroleum gas, electric cooking, biogas, bioethanol and briquettes.

Following the first Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in 2024, the Bank Group committed to channel USD 2 billion over ten years to clean cooking. It has already channelled approximately USD 135 million to clean cooking projects — a ten-fold increase compared with its cumulative financing for the sector before the 2024 Summit.

The Bank Group’s support is already visible across the continent. In Uganda, it is supporting the deployment of biogas plants and subsidies that make efficient electric cooking appliances more affordable. In Tanzania, electric cooking devices are being integrated into wider electrification investments. In Rwanda, results-based financing is designed to expand access to clean cooking technologies for 100,000 households and 300 institutions.

The Bank Group is also expanding concessional and catalytic finance for clean cooking through the Rome Process/Mattei Plan Financing Facility and the Africa Clean Cooking Program under the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.

The session was marked by high level interventions including Ireland announcing a pledge of EUROS 300,000 to support the work of the Clean Cooking Alliance.

“Success will not be measured by the dollars we invest, but by the lives we improve,” Akin-Olugbade said. “Clean cooking must become a central pillar of Africa’s energy transition — one that demands political leadership, sustained financing and collective action at scale.”

24 September 2026: The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Alliance for Renewable Electrification (ARE) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation on renewable electrification, investment and sustainable energy access across Eastern and Southern Africa.

The MoU was signed at ARE’s Green Industrialisation Days (GID) in Brussels, a gathering where public and private stakeholders share market intelligence, forge new partnerships and fast-track renewable energy projects that drive the green industrialisation of commercial and industrial (C&I) businesses in emerging markets.

The agreement brings together COMESA, a regional economic community of 21 African Member States with a combined population of more than 640 million, and ARE, the global industry platform for renewable electrification in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, which federates more than 170 renewable energy companies with a combined turnover exceeding EUR 58 billion.

At a time when countries across the region are seeking to expand reliable and affordable electricity access while strengthening energy security and responding to climate change, the MoU provides a framework for closer collaboration between public institutions and a united private sector.

Work under the MoU will focus on turning regional priorities into concrete opportunities on the ground. Together, COMESA and ARE will produce joint knowledge products, deliver training workshops and organise study tours, while systematically channelling private-sector input into policymaking to drive results at scale.

The two organisations will also work on project preparation and investment readiness, helping developers build scalable business models and bankable project pipelines, and will facilitate targeted matchmaking at industry events to catalyse new business relationships.

Finally, their knowledge exchange and convening activities will build on existing regional platforms, connecting an enabling policy environment with a stronger flow of investable projects and fostering sustained public-private dialogue.

“Energy is the backbone of regional integration and industrial development. Our Member States have set ambitious goals for electricity access and energy security, and meeting them will require the full engagement of the private sector. This MoU with ARE gives us a structured channel to bring industry expertise into our regional policy work and to mobilise the investment our region needs.”— Ambassador Dr. Mohamed Kadah – Assistant Secretary General Programs.

“Regional ambition needs private-sector delivery. By combining COMESA’s political leadership across the region with the collective strength of the private sector that ARE represents, we are bringing policymakers and industry to the same table, so that more projects reach financing and more people and businesses gain access to clean, reliable power.”— David Lecoque, CEO of ARE.

25 September 2026: The Government of Botswana, through the Ministry of Minerals and Energy, with support from Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), launched two complementary national instruments designed to accelerate the country’s renewable energy development while unlocking new opportunities for clean technology manufacturing and investment. The launch event took place on the sidelines of New York City Climate Week and the UN General Assembly.

The Botswana National Renewable Energy Power Sector Plan and the Botswana Clean Technology Manufacturing Policy and Investment Guide provide a coordinated framework for Botswana to move from renewable energy ambition to implementation, strengthening the power sector while positioning the country to capture greater economic value from the clean energy transition.

The Botswana National Renewable Energy Power Sector Plan provides the analytical foundation for scaling renewable generation. It sets out scenarios, investment priorities and recommendations to guide the development of Botswana’s power sector towards its 2030 renewable energy target and beyond.

Complementing this, the Botswana Clean Technology Manufacturing Policy and Investment Guide looks beyond electricity generation to the wider industrial opportunity presented by the energy transition. It identifies opportunities to develop domestic value chains around solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing and related industries, while outlining the policy incentives, institutional support and investment-enabling measures available to attract and retain private capital. The Guide also places Botswana’s clean technology manufacturing ambitions within the broader regional market, highlighting opportunities arising from SADC, SACU and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) frameworks.

Together, the Plan and the Guide provide a coherent investment proposition: a pathway to expand renewable power while using that expansion as a platform for industrial development, job creation, value-chain growth and economic diversification.

Speaking at the launch, Hon. Bogolo Joy Kenewendo, Minister of Minerals and Energy, Republic of Botswana, said:

“Botswana is entering a new phase in its energy development, one in which renewable energy is central to strengthening our power system and creating new opportunities for investment, industrial development and economic diversification. These two instruments give us a practical roadmap to move from ambition to implementation, creating the policy clarity and investment opportunities needed to build a competitive renewable energy and clean technology sector in Botswana.”

Damilola Ogunbiyi, the CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), said:

“Botswana has an opportunity to turn its renewable energy ambition into an engine for broader economic transformation, one that can drive investment, innovation and sustainable growth across sectors. We commend the Government of Botswana, and particularly the Ministry of Minerals and Energy, for its leadership. We are proud to have supported the development of these two important instruments.”

The launch comes at a critical moment for Botswana as it seeks to expand reliable and affordable electricity access while creating jobs and strengthening domestic industrial capacity. The two instruments therefore mark an important step towards a more integrated approach to the energy transition, linking renewable power deployment with industrial policy, investment mobilization and regional economic integration.

The Government of Botswana will work with public and private sector partners to support the implementation of the recommendations and help translate the identified opportunities into investments that contribute to Botswana’s long-term energy security, economic diversification and sustainable development.

30 September 2026: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is taking steps to strengthen regulation of its electricity sector to improve the financial sustainability of utilities, attract investment and expand access to power.

The Electricity Sector Regulatory Authority (ARE) and the African Development Bank held a stakeholder workshop in Kinshasa from 21 to 25 September as part of the African Energy Sector Technical Assistance Programme (AESTAP).

The workshop brought together experts from the Ministry of Water Resources and Electricity, ARE, the National Electricity Company (SNEL), private operators and other public institutions to discuss three key reforms: determining the cost of electricity supply, harmonising tariff methodology and establishing a regulatory framework for electricity grid connections.

“Effective economic regulation is an essential foundation for attracting investment, strengthening the sector’s sustainability and improving the quality of electricity services,” said Callixte Kambanda, Head of the Energy Policy, Regulation and Statistics Division at the African Development Bank. “Through AESTAP, the African Development Bank is supporting the DRC in developing the tools and capacities needed to translate regulatory reforms into tangible results for the population.”

The tariff study covering SNEL’s operational area is designed to equip the regulator with tools to assess the actual costs of electricity services, changes in demand, and the revenues required by operators.

The study recommends gradually introducing a transparent and equitable tariff framework that protects household purchasing power whilst ensuring adequate returns to support investment in power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.

“This study provides us with essential tools to better understand the sector’s costs, changes in demand and the effects of pricing decisions,” said Soraya Aziz-Moto, Director-General of ARE. “It will contribute to more transparent and predictable regulation that is more focused on achieving balance within the sector, whilst taking consumers’ needs into account.”

Beyond tariff setting, the reforms aim to strengthen the sector’s financial viability and improve predictability for investors.

Cherif Mohamed, the African Development Bank’s Country Manager for the DRC, said the work goes beyond the technical issues of tariffs and grid connection. “It forms part of a broader discussion on how the Democratic Republic of the Congo can build a well-regulated, financially viable electricity sector capable of attracting the investment needed to extend electricity access across the entire country,” he said.

The study also highlights the distinctive structure of SNEL’s customer base. According to SNEL’s 2024 annual report, the company had nearly one million billed customers and sold about 10,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, with most of the energy consumed by high-voltage customers.

Whilst low-voltage customers account for over 99 percent of SNEL’s portfolio, a small number of large industrial consumers account for the bulk of electricity consumption. This imbalance underscores the need for more reliable sector data to improve national energy demand forecasting.

The study recommends initially adopting a simple, operational tariff framework, with more sophisticated mechanisms introduced progressively as data quality and institutional capacity improve.

The reforms are part of Mission 300, a joint initiative by the African Development Bank Group and the World Bank Group to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030.