Over 93% of Ugandan households rely on wood and charcoal as their most accessible and affordable fuels. This leads to respiratory illnesses from household air pollution, especially among women and children; strains forests; and burdens families with significant time and income spent on fuel.  

In late 2025, Uganda moved towards a more equitable energy future by launching its first National Integrated Clean Cooking Strategy (NICCS), developed with support from SEI, Berkeley Air Monitoring Group, the Clean Cooking Alliance and the Centre for Integrated Research and Community Development Uganda. NICCS provides a unified, long-term solution to Uganda’s reliance on wood and charcoal for cooking. 

Fragmented energy policies 

In recent years, Uganda has launched several strategies to promote clean cooking technologies, including a national liquefied petroleum gas promotion project, strategies for electric cooking and biogas, and an ethanol feasibility study. Each set its own targets, aiming to reach 60% of households, as well as many enterprises and public institutions by the early 2030s. However, these efforts were developed independently by institutions, often without coordination, making it challenging to align activities, optimize resources, or present a unified national vision. 

To rectify this situation, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) provided support for the consulting partners to work with Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development on an overarching strategy that integrates the existing pathways into a single vision for clean cooking in the country. 

NICCS participatory approaches 

Designing the new strategy required moving beyond previous assumptions and engaging directly with stakeholders in Uganda’s cooking and energy sector. The process began with a kick-off meeting to engage a wide array of stakeholders. The team held several other events consulting with affected group and conducted 32 interviews with key actors, including ministry officials, suppliers, community members, and development agencies. The team also conducted two focus group discussions in Kampala that helped identify clean cooking barriers in the country. 

The interviews and focus group discussions were complemented by a thorough review of Uganda’s existing clean cooking policies and frameworks, including fuel-specific strategies, policy statements, standards, cost assessments, and project evaluations. The team synthesized data from these sources to identify areas of convergence and divergence in previous efforts. Two stakeholder workshops subsequently helped validate the findings.  

Uganda’s clean cooking scenarios 

The team developed a comparative model with two scenarios to examine potential outcomes for Uganda’s cooking practices: a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, in which current fragmented policies are implemented with limited coordination and current resources, and a NICCS scenario where clean cooking efforts are unified under the new strategy and receive greater funding.    

The model revealed that under BAU, biomass use would remain high, with only modest reductions by 2040, and greenhouse gas emissions from cooking would continue to rise. In contrast, the NICCS scenario showed Uganda could reduce biomass use by 64% by 2040, halve cooking-related greenhouse gas emissions, and lower black carbon emissions by over 70%. The model provided evidence to support the need for an national integrated clean cooking strategy. 

NICCS implementation 

The NICCS sets a timeline through 2040 to build markets, attract investment, and support households and institutions through cooking energy transitions. It integrates cleaner cooking options such as biogas, electric pressure cookers, ethanol and solar cookers, and lower-emission biomass technologies, recognizing that widespread uptake of clean and transitional cooking options will significantly reduce woodfuel use and smoke exposure. The strategy also clarifies institutional roles, introduces a national monitoring system, and allows for adaptive planning. 

Recommendations include: 

• Reform the polluting cooking landscape and address existing fragmented policies and programs by developing a comprehensive national strategy that integrates existing clean cooking policies and programs, assesses the feasibility of available clean cooking solutions, and sets clear targets to accelerate the achievement of universal access by 2040. 

• Strengthen institutional frameworks and foster collaboration among stakeholders to implement the NICCS and closely monitor progress through a robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) framework.  

• Use the knowledge acquired through MRV to periodically track and, if necessary, revise the NICCS targets, update policies, and modify incentives to ensure that the broader objectives of the NICCS will be met. 

• Address the lack of standards for clean fuels and appliances by developing fuel and technology-specific standards and testing protocols to ensure fuels and appliances meet efficiency, pollution, safety, and durability thresholds. 

• To overcome high costs of clean appliances and fuels, introduce targeted subsidies, easily accessible enterprise and end-user credits, and pay-as-you-go delivery models to support local manufacturing and make clean cooking solutions more affordable, particularly for less well-off households. 

• Introduce sector-specific retrofit initiatives for large commercial and institutional woodfuel consumers.  

• Bridge the communication gap and encourage behavioural change toward clean and transitional cooking options with targeted media and community awareness campaigns to educate the public about the time and cost savings, health benefits, and environmental benefits of clean and transitional cooking options. 

The strategy will soon be approved by top management in Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, and implementation will begin.