Madagascar Clean Cooking Initiative (MCCI) Launched- A decisive step towards clean cooking access
The clean cooking sector in Madagascar is undergoing a major revival after years of slow development. During a workshop held during 22 and 23 October 2024 in Antananarivo, MCCI – an association of clean cooking businesses was officially launched. This event was initiated under the joint leadership of the Ministry of Energy and Hydrocarbons, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, and Ministry of Industrialization and Trade. The event brought together more than 200 participants from the clean cooking sector. *The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), the World Food Programme (WFP) and World Wildlife Fund, supported the event.
Madagascar is facing a unique energy crisis, with around 80% of total energy consumption based on biomass, 68% of which comes from firewood and 10% from charcoal. This dependence on traditional unsustainably harvested biomass fuels is having a serious impact on the environment, contributing to alarming levels of deforestation. According to forecasts, 25% of Madagascar’s forests could disappear by 2030, due to demand for wood and charcoal for cooking. Only less than 12% of the population uses clean cooking technologies or improved stoves, leaving the majority of Malagasy people dependent on traditional cooking methods, with negative impacts on the environment and health. Traditional cooking methods present a major risk to public health due to Indoor Air Pollution causing around 21,000 deaths a year, or 10.7% of the country’s annual deaths, a figure that includes many children under the age of five. Indeed, Indoor Air Pollution remains the leading cause of child mortality in the country, due to acute respiratory infections caused by smoke generated when cooking with wood or charcoal.
Madagascar Clean Cooking Initiative (MCCI) is a national association of 48 companies from 13 regions of Madagascar. This initiative, which was set up under the guidance of UNIDO, promotes modern cooking technologies such as green sustainable charcoal, briquettes, biogas, bioethanol, and e-cooking. The launch was formalized by the signing of a quadripartite agreement between the Ministries of Energy, Environment, and Industry and the MCCI, sealing a strategic partnership to accelerate Madagascar’s just energy transition.
The MCCI initiative is part of the ‘Technical assistance project for the development of a national clean cooking and reforestation programme for Madagascar,’ implemented by UNIDO with financial support from The OPEC Fund for International Development.
The event served to lay solid foundations for the future National Clean Cooking Policy, a project currently being developed by the Malagasy government. The policy envisages greater access to affordable modern cooking fuels technologies for Malagasy households by 2030, in line with the objectives of the New Energy Policy (2015) and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The workshop also enabled participants to share best practices and articulate challenges in the sector, while highlighting the importance of public-private partnership to accelerate the adoption of modern clean cooking technologies.
Mrs. Marie Louise SCHMIDT, President of the MCCI, expressed an ambitious vision, which is to make Madagascar a model for clean cooking in Africa, thereby reducing deforestation, protecting the environment and public health, and improving the well-being of the Malagasy people – particularly women and children.
The launching of MCCI generated enthusiasm among clean cooking entrepreneurs. Since its launch, the Initiative has received twenty new membership applications.
This article is written by Jean Luc Randriamampianina.
