TANZANIA: IMAGINE waking up, still sleepy every morning, your heart brimming with love for the family only to realise that you must go out to look for firewood or light a charcoal stove to prepare food for the family.
You reside in the serene countryside, part of an extended family, where the daily grind of a to-do list holds no sway.
Instead, your mind is consumed with plans to enhance your humble abode a mud-walled, grass-roofed kitchen with three stones fireplace in the corner, where a plentiful supply of firewood awaits to fuel the hearth.
In every month you run out of firewood, despite its chocking scents and smokes that envelops you, sometimes bringing tears and endless coughs as you prepare the family’s meal.
Yet, the discomfort gears up when the kitchen runs out of the firewood to enhance your cooking.
For a fleeting week every month, you embark on a journey, rising with the sun and walking for hours through the daunting, windswept forest to collect the firewood from thorny and deadly trees that will sustain your family’s culinary needs for the coming weeks.
It’s a task that speaks volumes about the maternal duties thrust upon village women, a testament to their resilience and the unwavering commitment to their loved ones, but a burden tied to their life with deadly outcomes to their health and the environment in general.
This is the unvarnished reality that many women in our community face, a tapestry of resilience, sacrifice, and the enduring spirit that defines their role as the backbone of the family.
It’s the glimpse of a story that resonate with the reality as narrated by Bernice Kurwa a 63 years old woman who resides in her humble home beside the shore of lake Victoria in Bunda district of Mara Region.
Ms Kurwa said that, for her experience residing in rural area, they have known nothing about cooking energies than wooden biomass, animal dungs, as well as charcoal a little.
“Cooking is our fundamental responsibility as women. We use firewood on traditional fire places as we learnt since childhood,” Ms Kurwa said adding: that… “…The process of cooking with firewood will require you to deal with smoke until the food is ready, but also blowing on the fire with your mouth when the flame starts to die down so that it can continue burning.”
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According to the Impact of Access to Sustainable Energy Survey (IASES2021/22) released in November 2023 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), shows that 67 percent of all households in Mainland Tanzania use firewood as their main source of energy for cooking while Charcoal is the second most common source of energy used for 25 percent for cooking.
“In rural areas about 88 percent of households use firewood compared with 6 percent in Dar es Salaam, “Reads part of the report. The IASES2021/22 reports keeps showing that in Dar es Salaam like in other urban areas, charcoal is the most common fuel used for cooking.
On the other hand, 34 percent of households in Dar es Salaam, use gas while electricity is used by less than one percent.
While in other urban areas, 14 percent of households use gas for cooking while only 2 percent use electricity. In rural areas, less than 2 percent of households use gas for cooking, and none use electricity.
The NBS 2022 national population census which estimates the population of 62 million, 65.5 per cent resides in rural areas of which three in four people are under the age of 35.
This shows that a large number of Tanzanians resides in rural areas in which is at the peak of using firewood poses a threat to the country’s 48.1 million hectares of forests.
Ms Kurwa counts also in the 65 per cents of 62 million Tanzanians who resides in rural areas and one among 88 per cents who use dirty energies in cooking.
Opening the 2024 Women’s Clean Cooking Conference in Dodoma, the Vice-President, Dr Philip Mpango, unveiled that women are the most affected by the harmful consequences of using dirty cooking fuels.
He explained that in rural areas, women spend an average of 20 hours per week collecting firewood.
Additionally, the cooking process itself exposes them to dense, toxic smoke, which leads to respiratory illnesses.
Tragically, these factors contribute to approximately 33,000 Tanzanian deaths per year, including from lung cancer. “The issue of access to clean cooking energy is based on various national and international guidelines, including the National Energy Policy of 2015 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2030, where Goal 7 is focused on affordable clean energy,” said Dr Mpango.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates that the time value spent by women searching for firewood equals around 1.4 trillion US dollars, which is approximately 74 times the size of Tanzania’s 2024/25 national budget, as a cost of treatment for problems resulting from dirty cooking energy.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that, household air pollution from dirty energy cooking was responsible for an estimated 3.2 million deaths per year in 2020, including over 237 000 deaths of children under the age of 5. Most of the people affected being women and children.
WHO asserts that clean cooking solutions are also critical to environmental sustainability. It is estimated that 469,000 hectares of forests are being destroyed each year for the sake of firewood and charcoal in Tanzania.
Over the years women and girls have been carrying their families in their hearts and even risking their health to ensure that cooking energy is available for every family culinary activities.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan has also decided to carry all women, not just those in Tanzania, but across the entire Africa, with that same weight and spirit, by championing the clean cooking energy agenda.
Launching the ‘National Clean Cooking Energy Strategy’ held in Dar es salaam the Head of State expressed the government commitment in transforming the nation from using dirty energies to clean cooking energies.
The target set is by 2030 about 80 per cent of the Tanzanian population being converted into using clean cooking energies Dr Samia emphasized on the decades-long (2024- 2034) strategy will provide national guidance for all stakeholders to ensure the country achieves its 2030 clean cooking energy target.
Clean cooking energy will not only liberates women from harms of wooden biomass smoke, but it is also an economic and environmental liberation.
Improved access to clean cooking energy will have significant societal benefits. By reducing the time and labor required for household tasks like cooking, it will enable women to participate more actively in other economic activities.
This, in turn, will help reduce poverty and promote greater gender equality. It may also influence men to take a more active role in family daily chores, breaking the prevailing norms.
As women in rural areas embarks on a grueling odyssey, venturing deep into the untamed jungle spending over 20 hours per week, to scavenge firewood, President Samia journeys even higher.
For her bravery and advocacy, she takes voyages brimming with the promise of immeasurable bounty for her people and Africa as whole.
Starting from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the United Nation’s Conference of Party COP 28 her message before World leaders still echoes on how committed she is in making the world a better place.
A relief to environment, as being set free from carbon emission, women health, boosting economy for sustainability.
Sailing higher, President Samia mobilised 2.2 billion US dollars (about 5.7tri/- ) in the Global Clean Cooking Energy Summit held in France of which she CoChaired the summit.
As part of the summit benefits Tanzania secured 3.4 million British pounds (approximately 11.16bn/-) from the United Kingdom to support the National Clean Cooking Strategy (2024– 2034).
The strategy requires a total of 1.8 billion US dollars (4.6tri/-) over the next decade to achieve its objectives.
