The last-mile push to reach universal clean cooking access in Latin America and the Caribbean

More than 10% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) - or 70 million people - still lack access to clean cooking, according to the latest data, instead relying on harmful cooking practices including open fires, inefficient stoves, or harmful fuels to meet their daily needs. This disproportionately affects women and children, with indoor air pollution caused by these practices linked to over 80 000 premature deaths annually across the region.

The time spent gathering fuel, preparing, and tending to fires often limits opportunities for education and employment, particularly for women and girls who are more likely to take on these tasks. At the same time, the traditional use of biomass drives deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. The clean cooking access gap in the region significantly exceeds that of electricity - only around 3% of LAC's population still lack electricity access - highlighting a major energy poverty and insecurity challenge that needs to be addressed.

In recent decades, LAC has made significant strides in expanding access to clean cooking solutions, but progress has slowed. Since 2000, the share of the population with access has risen by only 10 percentage points, reaching 90% cumulatively across the region. In contrast, countries like the People's Republic of China (hereafter "China") and Indonesia achieved similar gains - from 80% to 90% - within just five years. This slower pace reflects challenges such as limited public funding, a lack of policy instruments and challenges in extending infrastructure to provide 'last-mile' access. Fuel stacking is also prevalent in many rural communities across the region wanting to preserve traditional albeit harmful cooking methods. The region's poorest and most remote communities are often scattered and sparsely populated, particularly in rainforest and mountainous regions in South and Central America, making service delivery more complex. While only 5% of the urban population lacks access to clean cooking - primarily in informal settlements that could be reached with targeted programs - one-third of the rural population still lacks access. Greater efforts to expand distribution infrastructure and targeted end-user incentives can accelerate progress. Without this, the share of the population lacking access to clean cooking in LAC will decline only marginally, leaving around 57 million people without clean cooking by 2030.

Today, some countries still face sizable access gaps, while for others last-mile access provision is the main challenge. The most severe gaps in clean cooking access are in Haiti (95%), Guatemala (53%), Honduras (49%), Nicaragua (40%) and Paraguay (30%). In some of these regions, this is contributing to severe deforestation and biodiversity loss. Between 2001 and 2023, Haiti alone lost over 35% of its forest cover. While in Mexico the access gap is minor (14%), yet the country still accounts for the largest number of people without access in the region (~19 million). Smaller deficits persist in Peru (11%), Bolivia (10%) and Colombia (6%) and with around half of the countries in LAC having less than 5% of their populations without access including Brazil (3%). In these regions, challenges are mostly concentrated in remote areas. Indigenous populations, representing 8% of LAC, are disproportionally affected by the lack of access to clean cooking solutions, often due to socioeconomic challenges and geographic isolation - targeted solutions that consider cultural specificities are vital to bridging this gap.