Africa’s best year for clean cooking widened the gap.

And the number of people without access still grew.

Population growth added more people to the gap than the record year took out. One billion people still cook with firewood, charcoal, or kerosene.

It almost feels like a treadmill where you run faster to stay in place.

But I would focus on two details instead.

First, the money: $2.2 billion was pledged at the Paris summit. Two years later, $740 million has actually moved, and 84% came from the private sector.

Not governments. Not donors.

The sector described as aid-dependent is already being carried by companies.

Second, the churn: When LPG prices spiked in Nigeria, households moved back to charcoal within weeks.

That detail matters more than the access numbers. Adoption is not a one-time conversion. Households make the decision again at every refill.

You do not win the customer when they buy the stove.

You win them on fuel price, availability, and reliability, week after week.

Which means the stove was never the real asset.

The fuel relationship is.

In fact, we faced this firsthand in 2023. We were brought in by an international NGO running a livelihood program in Ethiopia, built around a cookstove that ran on pellets.

The stoves were fine. The pelletizer was not. It broke often enough that maintenance costs became unsustainable, and they dropped it while the program was still running.

We had to work with them to find an alternative.

Nobody had a line in the budget for the pelletizer maintenance.

So, if your board deck leads with units sold, you are measuring only half the business.

The companies that last will not necessarily have the cleanest technology. They will be the ones a household can still afford during its worst month.

Four out of five African families are still waiting for that company.

The gap to 2040 is not only a development challenge.

It is the market.

If clean cooking or household energy is on your roadmap, let’s talk.