Tanzania’s Dual Strategy for Clean Cooking: Practical Lessons for MECS. How Managing Transitional Fuels While Scaling Modern Energy May Accelerate Clean Cooking Adoption.

Introduction

Tanzania is advancing a pragmatic clean cooking transition that directly aligns with key MECS learning themes: market activation, behaviour change, affordability, and enabling policy environments. Through a dual strategy approach, the country is simultaneously improving the sustainability of charcoal which is still used by many households while accelerating adoption of modern clean cooking solutions, including electric cooking (eCooking). Working on improving the sustainability of charcoal is a transitional and time-bound effort, designed to reduce harm while modern cooking solutions scale.

This approach is anchored in two complementary national frameworks: the National Charcoal Strategy and Action Plan (2021–2031) and the National Clean Cooking Strategy (2024–2034). Together, they demonstrate how countries can manage present realities while building scalable pathways to universal clean cooking access.

National Charcoal Strategy for Managing Transitional Fuels Responsibly

Recognising that charcoal will remain part of the energy mix during the transition, Tanzania’s National Charcoal Strategy focuses on reducing harm rather than denying reality. Core interventions include improving kiln efficiency, expanding community-based forest management, formalising markets, and promoting alternative livelihoods.

Learning from Implementation: Sustainable Charcoal Value Chains Practices

Selected Government initiatives implemented by TaTEDO-SESO and other NGOs with EU funding and partners illustrate how these principles work in practice:

• Strengthen community governance first: Village Land Use Planning and community forest management strengthened tenure security and accountability, forming critical foundations for sustainable resource management.
• Efficiency unlocks impact: Use of improved kilns by charcoal producers significantly increased charcoal yields, reducing pressure on forests while improving incomes.
• Markets matter: Organised charcoal producer and trader groups and the establishment of designated charcoal marketing centres helped shift charcoal from informal to regulated value chains.
• Livelihood diversification: Income-generating activities such as solar drying, beekeeping, baking, and briquette production, many led by women, are contributing to reduced dependence on charcoal over time.

Key lesson: Transitional fuels can be managed sustainably when technical training is combined with governance, markets, and alternative income opportunities.

National Clean Cooking Strategy for Accelerating Clean Cooking Practices

The National Clean Cooking Strategy targets 80% clean cooking adoption by 2034, with electric cooking positioned as a key solution for grid-connected households. Tanzania’s experience strongly reinforces MECS evidence that access alone does not guarantee adoption—awareness, affordability, and trust are decisive.

Learning from Implementation: MECS-Supported eCooking Awareness

A MECS-supported awareness and advocacy initiative provides practical insights into market activation:

• Integrated awareness works: Combining mass media with live cooking demonstrations rapidly shifted perceptions of electric cooking from “expensive” to “practical and affordable.”
• Social finance accelerates uptake: Engagement with women’s groups, savings groups, and MFIs enabled collective purchasing and credit access, expanding adoption beyond early adopters.
• Policy engagement amplifies impact: Direct engagement with decision-makers—supported by practical demonstrations—helped embed electric cooking within national clean cooking visioning and strategy processes.
• Markets respond quickly: Increased consumer confidence attracted new appliance brands, sales agents, and entrepreneurs.

Where the Strategies Converge
Tanzania’s experience shows that clean cooking transitions are most effective when supply, demand, and policy interventions move together:

• Sustainable charcoal measures reduce environmental damage during the transition period.
• Clean cooking initiatives focus on behaviour change, affordability, and market confidence.
• Both strategies protect livelihoods while creating new economic opportunities particularly for women.

This dual approach acknowledges hybrid cooking practices as a reality, while steadily shifting households toward modern energy solutions.

Appliances Promoted for Clean Electric Cooking Practices (photos © TaTEDO-SESO / SESCOM).

Key Takeaways for the MECS Community

1. Transition management matters: Ignoring dominant fuels slows progress; improving them accelerates change.
2. Awareness is catalytic: Well-designed campaigns can rapidly activate markets.
3. Social structures scale adoption: Groups and MFIs outperform individual marketing approaches.
4. Gender integration strengthens outcomes: Women’s leadership and economic participation drive adoption.
5. Pilots must inform systems: Implementation evidence should feed directly into policy and scale-up mechanisms.

Conclusion
Tanzania’s dual strategy approach offers a practical, evidence-based model for clean cooking transitions that resonates strongly with MECS objectives. By managing transitional fuels responsibly while actively building modern energy cooking markets, the country demonstrates that inclusive, scalable, and market-led clean cooking adoption is achievable.

For MECS and its partners, the message is clear: clean cooking transitions succeed when technology, finance, behaviour change, policy alignment, market readiness, social inclusion, and institutional capacity are addressed together, guided by robust implementation evidence and continuous learning.

This article draws on lessons from selected ongoing initiatives contributing to Tanzania’s National Charcoal Strategy and National Clean Cooking Strategy, supported by development partners including the European Union and the Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme.