Cookstove design, production and distribution are not usually high on the international development agendas, despite the fact that up to 3 billion people worldwide rely on open-fire cooking, which results in 4 million deaths a year and accounts for 21 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
That’s why the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves seeks to deliver clean cookstoves to 100 million people by 2020, and at the recent Cookstoves Future Summit in New York the organization received $413 million in global pledges to help it achieve that goal.
One of the main personalities backing this initiative is former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who launched the Alliance in 2010.