Recently, while on a field trip in one of the counties in Kenya, what stuck us is the way its rural communities were using firewood to cook food. With the current carbon economy, they were unaware of how much their action were leading to climate change, land degradation, and severe health impacts from household air pollution.

According to one of the leaders in the region, they have never seen electricity in their entire life. And despite the increasing levels of electricity connections and clean cooking distributions, penetration of electric cooking remains low, while that of solar is rare.

Currently, Kenya is one of the countries that has pledged to achieve universal access to clean cooking by 2028. The progress has been limited compared to electricity access, with 76 percent of the population without access to clean cooking. Globally, more than two billion people lack access to clean cooking facilities, relying on solid biomass, kerosene, or coal as their primary cooking fuel. Firewood remains the predominant fuel.

Clearly, technology and policies alone are not enough. So, the question is not what is wrong with access? It is who is missing from the solution. “The Kenyan Youth.” The youth make up 75 percent of Kenya’s population and over half of its labour force, hence they can be a driver of innovation. Initiatives like the Accelerated Clean Cooking Action in Kenya (ACCA) programme have already trained over 500 youth and women in clean cooking technologies and business skills.

The Clean Cooking Alliance’s Youth Engagement Strategy further highlights the potential of youth-led enterprises and advocacy. However, challenges like unemployment, lack of financing for youth projects, and exclusion from the decision-making process are still holding us behind.

As much as institutions like GIZ have invested in training and capacity building, these efforts are primarily geared towards professionals, and young people are rarely included. There is also a lack of investment in hackathons, which can lead us to have collaborative events where teams develop solutions to specific challenges.

A recent report by Kenya Forest Services indicates that over 68.5 percent rely on traditional cooking fuel options as their primary source. The consequences are devastating household air pollution, which causes more premature death each year than HIV, Malaria, and Tuberculosis combined, with $13 billion in healthcare costs stemming from traditional cooking annually. Families also lose countless hours in fuel collection, with women and girls carrying the heaviest burden through lost schooling and risk during fuel collection.

If leading institutions and industry players partnered with student bodies like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to host hackathons and incubate startups, this can make the youth-led innovation to thrive.

Kenya has many programmes in place when it comes to clean energy. But for them to be successful, its youth must be empowered to build rather than receive. However, cooking is personal, social and deeply cultural. This is making many communities to resist new methods not out of ignorance, but because past solutions ignored their realities.

Since Kenya’s research and product development (R&D) is advancing, with institutions like Kirdi, GIZ and the Strathmore Energy Research Centre leading efforts in technology testing, indoor air pollution monitoring and clean energy innovation. For instance, Kirdi has set up a laboratory for clean cooking that is equipped with a Particle Emmission Measurement System to validate cleaner technologies, while Strathmore University has also emerged as a player through its partnership and initiatives, such as the recently concluded Productive Use of Renewable Energy in Africa under the Leap-RE partnership.

However, these efforts overlook youth engagement, limiting their ability to translate research outputs into scalable community solutions. Therefore, the gap is most evident in the last mile, where youth-led enterprises could cut rural costs and help in building community trust and expand access to clean energy. And if the clean cooking policies are implemented aggressively, together with SDG7 of universal access to clean energy, with youth spearheading them, 31-73 gigatons of carbon emissions can be reduced.

With their leadership and advocacy, Kenya’s youth can drive awareness and anchor the country’s clean cooking transition. However, the policies need research and product development (R&D) to work. Kenya does not lack ideas, it lacks an ecosystem that trusts its youth to lead. Empowering them through skills, mentorship and funding can unlock their role as true agents of change. Shifting the view of youth from ‘beneficiaries’ to builders will move clean cooking beyond aid and pilot into Kenyan homes, schools, hands and hearts.

The youth could also mobilise communities to shift perceptions and normalise clean cooking practices in Kenya, where the Ministry of Energy has launched a behavioural Change and Communication strategy and public campaigns to raise awareness on clean cooking. This could solve challenges like low public awareness, cultural preferences and misconceptions about fuel cost and safety.

The article, first published in the Business Daily, was written by Prof. Izael Da Silva, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Innovation, and Ms. Fridah Joy Namudu, a final-year student at the University of Nairobi.