Smoke plumes from her makeshift plank-tucked kitchen in Bellemuh, Bong County, where Faith Flomo keeps the community alive. Her meat, soup, and rice cost less than US$1, offering a lifeline for commercial motorbike riders, students, and farmers fueling up for their daily hustle.
One by one, customers approach, conversing in their native Kpelleh dialect before taking their plates to eat just outside the kitchen's edge. But for Flomo, the price of providing these meals is a constant physical toll. Whether she is using a three-stone open fire or a charcoal cookpot, inhaling the smoke remains her greatest battle. "The smoke can be too much for my eyes," says the mother of two, who is selling to raise money for her college fees to study nursing.
She buys the bundle of wood gathered from the forest for 100 Liberian dollars to cook 20 cups of rice every day. Despite her routine, Flomo is eager to modernize her kitchen; she hopes to trade her open fire for a more efficient cookstove if she can find one in her town.
"I haven't seen any cookstoves on the market here," she says. "If I see one, I will buy it."
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Flomo's daily battle with smoke is a reality shared by 52% of Liberian households that rely on charcoal and 45% that rely on firewood as their primary cooking fuels, according to census data. A plan was developed in 2015 to make clean cookstoves, solar lamps, and efficient appliances available to rural inhabitants like Flomo by 2030.
The plan calls for the decentralization and equitable distribution of electricity to the population outside of Monrovia--10 percent in 2020, 20 percent in 2025, and 35 percent in 2030. The plan prioritizes wiring the largest cities and towns first, ensuring that all county capitals, health facilities, and secondary schools receive electrification before 2025. The 10 largest settlements in each county would be electrified by 2030, with a minimum of 15 percent of each county receiving electricity.
Until now, Flomo says, a clean cookstove has not been available in her town.
In an email, Samuel Nagbe, Executive Director of the Rural Renewable Energy Agency (RREA), said that the limited availability of reliable data remains a major challenge for tracking clean cooking access in Liberia. He notes that while several national policy frameworks--including the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development and the National Energy Compact (Mission 300)--aim to increase access, none currently set a clear target for achieving universal clean cooking by 2030.
He cited limited institutional coordination among sector actors, the absence of a clear national strategic roadmap for clean cooking, limited policies, and national guidelines specifically addressing clean cooking technologies. Nagbe also pointed out low public awareness of consumer education, limited market data, and monitoring systems as barriers that affect large-scale adoption of clean cooking in Liberia.
"Addressing these barriers will be essential to accelerate the transition toward cleaner cooking solutions nationwide," he said.
Open-fire cooking contributes to deforestation and climate change. Clean cookstoves, which use less charcoal, emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Efforts to improve access to clean cooking solutions are crucial for achieving sustainable development goals and ensuring a healthier, more equitable future for people. Cookstoves have been identified as an alternative to address air pollution.
Nathaniel Blama, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said clean cookstoves reduce people's dependence on forests to cut firewood that is cut down to produce charcoal by using less coal to produce heat.
"Overall clean cookstove is an immediate and temporary solution," he said.
Climate experts and the UN have repeatedly warned that if actions are not taken, the world will fall short of its target to achieve universal access to clean cooking by 2030, "ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all," according to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Flomo's hope for a cookstove would help to save Liberia's forest, which is already depleting as a result of charcoal production, but illnesses caused by breathing in the smoke, including heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, and pneumonia, cause 3.2 million deaths worldwide each year, according to a World Health Organization fact sheet on air pollution.
Liberia's air quality is considered moderately "unsafe," according to the guidelines set by the World Health Organization. Although data on air quality is limited, the most recent data indicates that the country's annual mean concentration of PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller) exceeds the recommended maximum 10 µg/m³.
Half of the remaining rainforest in West Africa is within Liberia's borders. In 2010, Liberia had 9 million hectares of natural forest, extending over 97 percent of its land area. Between 2001 and 2022, the country lost one-quarter of its "tree cover," according to Global Forest Watch.
Yet the charcoal sector has become one of the most active industries in Liberia. A 2019 World Bank report stated that about 337,000 tons of charcoal--worth US$46 million--were sold in 2018, employing 28,000 people.
Liberia has committed to cutting emissions by 64% by 2035. Under its health adaptation targets in the updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the country committed to promoting household and community-level adoption of practices that improve air quality, improve water safety, and reduce the risk of disease transmission while also reducing fuelwood use, such as water filters, water source protection, and improved cookstoves.
Moving Liberians to clean-burning stoves is an important tactic in protecting Liberia's forests and the biodiversity within them, climate experts said. When trees are cut down to produce charcoal or wood, it contributes to deforestation, one of the major factors in climate change. Trees absorb greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, so they can help reduce the effects of climate change.
Private businesses as key partners for expansion?
The German Development Cooperation (GIZ), through its jointly supported program, Energising Development, has trained artisanal cookstove producers like Red Fire Pot to produce cookstoves and provide funds to help strengthen their businesses. Mohammed Kamara, head of the business located in Battery Factory. He thanked GIZ for the support. But, says GIZ support has ended.
"I want the government to support me in producing the Red fire pot," he pleaded.
Nadge, said the agency, long-term aims to create enabling conditions that support private sector participation and investment in clean cooking solutions, particularly in underserved and hard-to-reach areas.
New Energy Compact Offers Hope
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At the Africa Energy Summit held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, last year, Liberia signed a landmark Energy Compact aimed at transforming the nation's power landscape. The agreement sets an ambitious goal to expand electricity access to 100,000 households annually--up from the current rate of 70,000--with the intent of boosting the national access rate from 32.7% to at least 75% by 2030.
Under this compact, the government has committed to several key pillars: increasing the share of renewables in the national grid from 67% to 75%, while simultaneously expanding total generation capacity by 150% and mobilizing US$150 million in private capital, including US$70 million for utility-scale solar and up to US$100 million for decentralized renewable energy (DRE) and clean cooking. It also plans to create a national clean cooking strategy to establish baselines and targets, specifically designed to benefit women and marginalized communities.
Charles Umehai, Deputy Minister for Energy at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, confirmed that the ministry is currently drafting a clean cooking policy. This roadmap will undergo rigorous stakeholder validation before being finalized.
"We are also learning from Sierra Leone," he says. "A team headed by me. We learned a lot from what Sierra Leone is doing to promote clean cooking."
Umehai said that public awareness and sustainability are the twin pillars of the upcoming initiative. The ministry's ultimate goal is to launch an Integrated National Energy Master Plan, which will consolidate these smaller strategies into one national vision.
"Strategy is key. You must have a roadmap and a plan; that is the only way to lay the foundation for where you want to go," Umehai added, following a recent national validation workshop.
