Almost 80% of households in Ghana don’t have access to clean cooking fuels.
Our study ‘Ensuring access to affordable, sustainable, and clean household energy for all in Ghana’ analyses the main challenges people face with regards to clean energy (SDG 7) in the country. The findings show that rural households from low socioeconomic backgrounds and women have the lowest levels of clean and affordable energy supply.
Highlights
In 2018, air pollution from cooking fuels caused about 11,500 deaths in Ghana. The number of deaths attributable to cooking fuels is projected to grow in the near future to around 13,820 per year.
In rural areas, CO2 emissions are projected to increase to 13.3 million metric tons in 2030. If the use of polluting household fuels continues at the same pace until 2030, Ghana will contribute significantly to rising global temperatures.
The urban–rural divide in Ghana shapes how clean the energy and cooking fuels people use are. While 90% of all urban households rely primarily on electricity for lighting, the figure is only 58% for rural households. While 35% of urban households use clean fuels for cooking, this is true for only 6% of households in rural Ghana.
Because of poor access to clean energy, women in Ghana have to spend considerable amounts of time gathering firewood.
Aba Crentsil
Research FellowAba is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Statistical. Social and Economic Research (ISSER). She has over 8 years of experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research focused on the interactions between populations and their environments.
Ama Fenny
Research FellowAma is a Research Fellow at ISSER. She has extensive experience conducting research in the areas of developmental issues in health economics, health service delivery, social protection and gender based analysis.
Charles Ackah
Senior Research FellowCharles is a development economist and currently acts as Director of the Centre for Social Policy Studies and as a Senior Research Fellow at ISSER , both at the University of Ghana.
Derek Essuman
Independent ResearcherDerek is a Research Assistant at the University of Ghana. Derek’s primary research interests are in Applied Microeconomics and Microeconometrics, particularly health, labour, education and development.
Evans Otieku
Graduate Research AssistantEvans is currently a Guest Researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark and a Research Assistant at ISSER. He has particular research interests in environment, health and energy.
Kwasi Nantwi
Journalist, Communications OfficerKwasi is Publications/Communications Officer at ISSER, University of Ghana. His interests are in social and development issues, as well as press freedom.