A vermilion cooking pot releases a light plume of steam above an electric hob, an original painting about the everyday possibilities of dependable, cleaner cooking.
Healthier household energy begins with equipment people can use, fuel they can afford and choices that make sense in their own kitchens.
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
The evening meal has a deadline that an energy plan cannot postpone. Someone is hungry. Ingredients have been prepared. A pot is waiting. Whatever fuel is available, whatever money remains and whatever equipment still works must somehow become dinner.
That ordinary moment is a useful place to begin thinking about clean cooking. A household needs a practical way to prepare the food it wants, at a cost it can carry, with less harmful pollution. The answer has to work after the demonstration ends and long after the first appliance is delivered.
Cleaner cooking can open room for better health and a less demanding day. Realizing that possibility requires careful attention to the people who cook, the people who pay and the systems that keep energy available.
Understand what the health evidence says
The joint 2025 Tracking SDG 7 report estimates that around 2.1 billion people lacked access to clean cooking in 2023. Tracking SDG 7 executive summary. The World Health Organization’s fact sheet, updated on December 16, 2025, estimates that household air pollution was responsible for 2.9 million deaths in 2021. These are global estimates from different reference years, not counts observed today. The health burden includes heart disease, stroke and respiratory illness. WHO household air pollution fact sheet.
The scale deserves attention without turning any individual household into a symbol of helplessness. People manage the options available to them. An unreliable supply, a high refill price or a stove that cannot hold the family’s cooking pot can make an apparently simple transition difficult.
A further distinction matters. WHO’s access indicator measures primary reliance on clean fuels and technologies, using estimates informed by household surveys and censuses. Primary reliance does not mean exclusive use. An access figure therefore cannot, by itself, show how often another stove is used or how much pollution a person actually breathes. WHO indicator methods.
For an organization planning support, that distinction should change the first question. Instead of stopping at whether a household received a new stove, ask what it uses for breakfast, for a long simmer, for a large meal and when the usual energy supply fails.
Give the cook a real part in the decision
A useful conversation begins with the meal, rather than the appliance catalogue.
What foods are prepared most often? How many pots need heat at the same time? Which vessels must fit? Who operates the equipment, and can everyone who needs to use it do so comfortably? Which cooking tasks take the most effort? What would the household most like to improve?
These questions are not a courtesy added after the technical decision. They help define what the technical decision needs to achieve.
There is qualitative evidence behind this attention to daily practice. In a study published in 2020, researchers interviewed 22 women taking part in an LPG intervention in Puno, Peru, where equipment and fuel were provided free. Participants described helpful features such as compatible cookware, time savings and staff support. They also discussed refill delays, safety concerns and difficulties with some dishes. The interviews came from a purposively selected group within a supported trial, so they do not establish how common those experiences are elsewhere. They do show why removing the purchase price does not remove every practical concern. Williams and colleagues, Beyond cost.
The same research offers a caution about how support is delivered. Some participants reported delaying a refill request because they worried about appearing to use too much fuel. A service can unintentionally make people reluctant to ask for what they need. That finding belongs to this particular study, but the design question travels well: can someone report a difficulty without feeling judged?
A local cooking trial should give households room to disagree with the proposal. Let people prepare familiar food in their usual quantities. Invite criticism of the controls, the stability of the pot and the time required. Ask privately as well as in a group. A confident spokesperson may not share the concerns of the person who will cook every day.
Be precise about the word clean
WHO identifies electricity, solar, biogas, LPG, natural gas and alcohol fuels as clean for health at the point of use, alongside biomass stoves that meet its emission targets. An “improved” biomass stove is not automatically clean under that definition. Nor does a point-of-use classification mean that a fuel has no environmental impact across its production and delivery. WHO guidance on household fuels.
That leaves room for different local pathways. It also demands honesty about their requirements.
An electric option needs a suitable appliance, compatible cookware where required, safe wiring and electricity that is available when meals are prepared. An LPG option needs appropriate equipment, safe installation and a dependable refill service. A biogas proposal needs a realistic assessment of inputs, operation and maintenance. None should be recommended solely because it looks impressive in a photograph.
Public-health performance, household cost, safety and environmental impact deserve their own checks. A strong claim in one area should not quietly substitute for evidence in another.
For families, these distinctions should be explained in familiar language. They should not have to decode a technical label before discovering that a new device needs a special fuel unavailable nearby.
Price the ordinary month
The purchase price is visible. The cost of keeping a household cooking can be less obvious.
A fair comparison should include the appliance and necessary equipment, fuel or electricity, transport to obtain fuel, repairs, replacement parts and any financing charges. It should also recognize time spent obtaining and preparing fuel, without pretending that every saved hour immediately becomes paid employment.
The IEA’s July 2025 report on clean cooking in Africa identifies affordability alongside stove design, cooking speed, safety, food preparation needs and fuel availability as barriers to sustained uptake. Its affordability analysis includes equipment and a year of fuel, with a threshold based on household income. That is a modeling convention, not a guarantee that a particular family can pay when a refill falls due. IEA policy considerations.
Timing can be decisive even where a yearly total looks manageable.
Consider an explicitly illustrative household, not a reported case. Its income arrives in small, irregular amounts. A cleaner option costs less over a full month, but buying the next refill requires a larger payment on one day. The family may choose a fuel sold in smaller quantities because dinner cannot wait for the monthly calculation to become true.
A practical response could involve transparent smaller payments, a well-designed subsidy or another locally suitable arrangement. Each needs scrutiny. What is the total price? Are there extra fees? What happens after a missed payment? Does support continue through a difficult season? Is the household free to decline?
A generous opening offer should come with a clear explanation of the ordinary price that follows it. Otherwise, the first month can disguise the cost of the next eleven.
Plan the supply before distributing the equipment
A cooking system extends beyond the kitchen.
The IEA’s infrastructure assessment describes LPG needs that include storage, bottling and safe transport. It also emphasizes reliable electricity for electric cooking and maintenance and training for biogas systems. Its analysis concerns African infrastructure and should not be treated as a map of every locality, but the broader planning lesson is useful: each technology depends on services that must keep working. IEA clean cooking infrastructure.
Before a large distribution, trace the actual route from energy source to household. Identify the nearest reliable supplier, the usual replenishment time and the arrangement for reporting a fault. Check whether the service reaches households during bad weather or a seasonal road closure. Ask what happens if the main supplier stops trading.
A local retailer also needs a workable business. A program that expects shops to hold stock without adequate turnover, working capital or safe storage may create a fragile service. Supplier enthusiasm at a launch is useful, but it is not the same as a credible operating plan.
Include the less photogenic costs in the budget. Transport, maintenance, training and follow-up may be essential to continued use. Funding only the visible appliance can leave a household holding equipment that nobody can afford to keep running.
A small initial group can help test these arrangements before expansion. That trial should examine several ordinary refill or billing cycles, not merely whether the stove works on delivery day.
Treat mixed use as information
Households may use more than one stove or fuel. A person might favor one method for a quick meal and another for a large pot, or return to an older device when prices rise or electricity fails.
When that happens, the useful response is curiosity. Which task was difficult? Was the fuel unavailable? Was there enough money at the necessary moment? Did someone need more instruction? Did the equipment fail?
An explicitly illustrative program might discover that its new appliance handles everyday meals well but not a larger weekly gathering. Another might find that the appliance suits the food perfectly while refill deliveries repeatedly arrive late. Those situations call for different changes. A single label such as “resistance” would hide the work that needs doing.
This is also why a program should avoid rewarding only favorable answers. If people believe that reporting continued use of another stove will threaten their eligibility for help, the organization may receive reassuring reports instead of useful information.
Respectful follow-up can make the difficult answer safe. Explain what is being asked, why it matters and how it will be used. Do not turn a home visit into an inspection of someone’s worthiness.
Make safety and support usable
A safe transition needs more than a leaflet.
Training should be specific to the equipment, appropriate to the setting and available in a language and format people can use. Qualified installers and service providers should follow applicable standards and manufacturer instructions. Households should know how to obtain help and what to do if they suspect a fault.
The aim is practical confidence, not pressure to ignore a concern. Someone uneasy about a connection, a control or an unfamiliar smell deserves a clear response from a competent provider.
It is also worth checking who can carry a cylinder, reach a switch, read a display or operate a stiff control. The person attending the demonstration may not be the only person who cooks. Older adults and people with disabilities should be included in equipment selection and support planning rather than treated as an exception after purchase.
No article can certify a household installation. Local technical assessment remains necessary. Good program design makes that assessment available instead of leaving the household to improvise.
Measure continued usefulness
The number of appliances distributed is a useful record of activity. It is an incomplete account of what changed.
A more informative follow-up combines a few clear numbers with conversations about experience. Depending on the program and consent arrangements, useful measures could include:
The share of participating households still using the new option at defined follow-up dates.
Fuel or electricity spending, with the period, household context and seasonal variation recorded.
Supply interruptions, repair delays and reasons for using another stove.
Cooking time and fuel-collection time, measured consistently rather than assumed.
Household assessments of convenience, meal quality, safety and remaining concerns.
These are proposed measures, not results from a Foundation program.
Self-reports are valuable, but they have limits. People may remember an unusually difficult week, estimate time differently or hesitate to criticize a service. Equipment-use monitoring can answer some questions, but requires consent and careful interpretation. An operating stove does not automatically establish who was exposed to pollution or for how long.
If a program claims an improvement in air quality or health, it needs an evaluation suited to that claim. A delivery count, an appreciative photograph or a short satisfaction survey cannot establish deaths prevented.
The most useful report is one that helps the next decision. If use drops after a subsidy ends, say so. If people value the device but cannot obtain fuel, show the supply problem. If a small trial works well, describe the conditions that helped rather than presenting the result as universal.
Leave room for possibility
Cleaner cooking is often discussed through disease burdens and infrastructure gaps. Those are important. So are the quieter possibilities that households may value: less effort around a daily task, greater confidence that a meal can be prepared, or a little more freedom to choose how to spend the day.
Those possibilities should be defined with people, not assigned to them. A saved hour may become rest, care, study or work. It belongs to the person whose time has been freed.
The next useful step for a community organization may be modest: listen to a range of households, compare locally available options, examine the full cost and test the supply arrangements. That careful beginning can prevent an expensive disappointment and make room for something that lasts.
A good cooking solution earns its place through ordinary use. Dinner is ready, the cost is manageable, the equipment is trusted and the next supply can be obtained. Repeated over time, those practical gains can make a meaningful difference.
If your organization has relevant clean-energy, public-health, education or community-development expertise, you can propose a partnership with Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.. Describe the need, location and contribution you have in mind so that fit, capacity and responsibilities can be considered. You can also support the Foundation through a donation, reviewing the available giving options and any stated designation. This invitation does not imply an existing clean-cooking program or promise that a gift will fund a particular stove.
