Two million women and children die out of unclean air - Kris Balderston

Mr. Kris Balderston, Secretary of State’s Special Representative for Global Partnership, said on Thursday that two million women and children died every year across the world from inhaling unclean air from cookstoves.

This menace, he said, killed women and children twice as much as malaria and considerably more than tuberculosis, adding that it also hindered women’s ability to empower themselves for development.

Mr Balderston who was addressing a tele-conference on the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) from the United States, said almost three billion people today lacked healthy and efficient cooking solutions in their homes.

The conference call was to interact with the media on the need for all African countries to adopt the use of clean cookstoves that would create clean standards for clean environment.

Ghana, Chad, Malawi, Uganda and South Africa were the five countries that participated in the tele-conference.

He said the GACC was formed with the United Nations Foundation, to create a market-driven approach and create a standard for cookstoves around the world that would allow people to make informed choices.

Mr Balderston indicated that, the Alliances' goal was for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.

"This is a problem we do not want to solve by involving only nations, but also Non-Governmental Organization, Foundations, Corporations, and associations, as well as any individual who could help to resolve the problem," he added.

He said the collaboration was a public-private partnership that could save lives, empower women, improve livelihoods and combat climate change across Africa and throughout the world, by creating a global market for clean and efficient household cooking solution.

“The alliance comprises of a rapidly growing list of over 350 partners, including 30 and more countries, working together to overcome the market barriers that currently impede the production, deployment and use of clean cookstoves in the developing world”.

He said it was up to the countries to create a common platform to help businesses and individuals make the use of clean cookstoves and fuel grow, and make the markets work globally.

“We have to start up with a market analysis in countries, find out what fuels were available in countries, supply mode of crude, distribution of clean stoves. Countries would have to make distribution channels available to everybody, and promote portfolio solutions to meet the needs of the poor”.

Mr. Balderston said, cooking should not kill, and called on Non-Governmental Organizations, corporate organization, and governments to partner the GACC to provide the necessary resources to create healthy and efficient cooking solutions for individuals.