Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development (ICEED) in partnership with Heinrich Boell Foundation, the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cooking and the Federal Ministry of Environment has conducted a 2-day clean cooking training for staff of the clean cooking unit, Department of Climate Change, Federal Ministry of Environment and some key stakeholders’ in Abuja.
The training was aimed at preparing the Clean Cooking Unit in the Federal Ministry of Environment to carry out its institutional mandate of advancing the goal of clean cooking in Nigeria. Other stakeholders trained were better equipped to implement their clean cooking activities and move the industry forward.
In his welcome address, Ewah Eleri, Executive Director, International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development stated that “the training is apt as the capacity of the Clean Cooking Unit in the Federal Ministry of Environment needs to be built so they can discharge their institutional leadership responsibility in the clean cooking industry”.
He commended the Ministry for its commitment in championing the drafting of a clean cooking policy and establishing a National Clean Cooking Committee to support efforts in creating an enabling environment for the expansion of clean cooking access and meeting its developmental and environmental goals.
Precious Onuvae, Research and Partnership Manager, International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development and Secretary, Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cooking co-facilitated the training.
She thanked the Heinrich Boell Foundation for their continued support in promoting access to clean cooking in Nigeria. She urged the participants to pay attention to the details of the training so they can be good ambassadors of clean cooking in their respective organisations and spheres of influence.
According to the training facilitator, Okechukwu Ugwu, “clean cooking programming should be a collaborative effort between the government and private sector stakeholders”.
Going further, he urged the government and private stakeholders present to adopt lessons from the training on the need to regularly interface and seek advice from the private sector and civil society to ensure that issues around clean cooking are adequately reflected in government plans and actions.
Asmau Jibril, Chief Scientific Officer in charge of the Clean Cooking Unit, Federal Ministry of Environment in her closing remark commended the Heinrich Boell Foundation for funding the training, noting that “this is the first of its kind in the Ministry”.
She thanked ICEED for their untiring support and pledged the Ministry’s continued efforts in expanding access to clean cooking.
The training took participants through the basic concepts and overview of clean cooking in Nigeria, and the sources of local and international financing for clean cooking, benefits and limitations and opportunities that Nigeria can tap into to expand the clean cooking sector. It also took participants through the process of developing an effective advocacy and communication strategy that can be used as a tool to influence clean cooking programming both at the national and sub-national levels.
The two days in-person training took participants through series of modules including an overview of clean cooking in Nigeria, financing the clean cooking Industry, advocacy and communicating the value of clean cooking, growth strategy among others. At the end of the workshop every participants presented a summary of their key takeaways and their plans for expanding access to clean cooking in their organisations
