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Solutions for this problem can't rely simply on the construction of better cooking stoves or replacing wood with other fuels. The priorities within this sector should include:
1. Provide targeted, gender-focused capacity building, training, and tools for women regarding clean cooking and the health risks related
2. Address gender issues and integrate women in the clean cooking sector.
3 Advocate, raise awareness and provide financing for  issues relating gender equality, promoting women entering the work field and shared responsibilities of household chores.

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Around the world, daily cooking responsibilities are largely held by women and girls. Clean cooking can ease the health problems and economic burdens that disproportionately impact them.

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Gender Aspects of Cooking

Around the world, daily cooking responsibilities are largely held by women and girls. Clean cooking can ease the health problems and economic burdens that disproportionately impact them.

Every day, millions of women and girls around the world breathe in harmful smoke while cooking and spend hours walking far distances to secure cooking fuel. Reliance on polluting, open fires and inefficient fuels leads to health impacts like emphysema, cataracts, cancer, and heart disease, as well as economic impacts like the inability to achieve a complete education.

Read our gender factsheet

The Issue

Three billion people, or 40% of the world's population, rely on polluting open fires and inefficient fuels such as wood, charcoal, coal, and kerosene for cooking.

Lack of access to clean cooking solutions forces women and children in many developing countries to spend as much as 10 hours a week collecting fuel. In some cases, women provide 91% of households' total efforts to collect fuel and water, and women have an average working day of 11-14 hours, compared to an average of 10 hours for men.

A reduction in time spent collecting fuel and cooking enables women to pursue other activities, including income-generating or educational opportunities.

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The Solution

Providing women access to modern energy is a critical but often overlooked means of empowering women and advancing gender equality.

With clean cooking technologies, a woman could reduce or eliminate her exposure to household air pollution; cut down on cooking time; eliminate or reduce the number of trips she makes to fetch firewood; and be able to leverage the time saved to engage in productive economic activities, pursue educational opportunities, or simply rest.

Women play a critical role in increasing awareness and generating demand for clean cooking solutions, partly as a result of their networks and community relationships. The clean cooking value chain also offers new pathways for women's economic empowerment, providing opportunities for women entrepreneurs to contribute to a thriving global industry for clean cooking.

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More on Women and Clean Cooking

In line with its Gender Strategy, CCA supports organizations in adopting gender-informed business approaches, and ensures that women can be participants and leaders in clean cooking markets.

CCA's six-step, gender-smart consulting service consists of a menu of customizable gender offerings for sector actors seeking to understand and adopt gender-smart approaches.

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Women & Clean Cooking | Clean Cooking Alliance

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Around the world, daily cooking responsibilities are largely held by women and girls. Clean cooking can ease the health problems and economic burdens that disproportionately impact them. Every day, millions of women and girls around the world breathe in harmful smoke while cooking and spend hours walking far distances to secure cooking fuel.

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This study, interviewed women and girls in Northern India to determine their involvement in cooking and their available resources for this task. For women who did not have access to clean cooking technologies, prevalence of respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, phlegm, and chest pain - all linked to diseases like asthma, TB, bronchitis and chest infections. Researchers found that as girls got older, the prevalence of these diseases and symptoms increased - directly linking it to household smoke exposure.

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Household air pollution affects mostly women & children and is related to helf of pneumonia related deaths among children, moreover, women exposed to household smoke are almost 3 times more prone to develop respiratory illness.

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WHO fact sheet on indoor air pollution: includes key facts, definition, impact on health, impact on health equity, WHO response.

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According to WB data, over 30% of the world still lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. Most of this population exists in developing countries, particularly in rural areas.

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Access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking (% of population)

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Access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking (% of population)

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Regions with less access to clean cooking fuels & technologies:
- Africa
- South East Asia
Central America

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This paper explores gender sensitive solutions related to cooking practices and water recollection in rural Nicaragua. The study interviews 46 women/families on their division of labor and cultural gender roles. Through these interviews, the paper concludes that although there are established gender roles such as "women are in charge of cooking", with the effects of climate change, other roles such as wood and water collection are now shared between men and women or even mainly carried out by men. Moreover, there is a concern that focusing only on climate change or health solutions, might reinforce existing inequalities - such as women being bound to non-paid house work. This raises the question, if some of our "gender sensitive" climate change solutions are actually deepening some existing gender gaps as they attemp to be sensitive to context and local cultures?

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This Man Built a Superhero Stove That Can Save 3.8 Million Lives!

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Improved biofuel kitchens - In touch with reality 

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Improved biofuel kitchens - In touch with reality 

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The proposed solution is context appropiate and therefore sustainable. It is clear that a modern stove is not a workable solution to this problem, as it it far beyond what lower income families in developing countries can afford and it is not always accesible in remote locations. Moreover, this particular program includes an educational component that is key to change generational traditions revolving around open wood stove cooking.

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Are "Gender Sensitive" solutions getting it right?

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Are "Gender Sensitive" solutions getting it right?