WLGA accelerates clean cooking at Sub-Saharan Africa LPG Expo

April 9, 2026 By Chris Markham 0 Comments

The World Liquid Gas Association (WLGA) is participating in the Sub-Saharan Africa LPG Expo, taking place April 9-10 in Johannesburg at a time of heightened demand for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in southern African cities.

Michael Kelly, chief advocacy officer and deputy managing director of WLGA, will join over 2,000 delegates from the international energy community and clean cooking experts to accelerate LPG use in Africa.

Key moments of the expo will include:

• A Cooking For Life Workshop, hosted by the WLGA Cooking For Life Africa Task Force, will empower individuals to share proven strategies for expanding LPG access and best practices for clean cooking programs.

• The official launch of the Saudi Forward7 Initiative Africa Clean Cooking Competition, a cross-sector program designed to identify and scale innovative clean cooking solutions across Africa.

• Taking place under the theme of “Clean Cooking for a Greener, Healthier Sub-Saharan Africa,” the expo will highlight that LPG is abundant, affordable and deployable today and has driven around 70 percent of global clean-cooking gains since 2010.

The expo is another critical milestone for the global LPG community ahead of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) second Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, set to take place July 9-10 in Nairobi, Kenya, as well as the WLGA’s Liquid Gas Week, which will convene the global LPG industry in Istanbul on Oct. 12-16 under the theme “Resilience in a Changing World.”

“The first Sub-Saharan Africa LPG Expo arrives at a critical time for our industry against a backdrop of geopolitical instability that is already affecting critical LPG markets like India,” says Natacha Cambriels, vice president LPG and clean cooking, TotalEnergies and Cooking For Life Africa Task Force chair. “The WLGA Cooking For Life Africa Task Force shows that the private sector is building the infrastructure and driving the technical innovation needed to facilitate the rollout of clean cooking solutions across a complex supply chain. This expo is a critical milestone on the road to Nairobi and Istanbul, which the private sector and governments must use as a platform to accelerate clean energy access and clean cooking across the world.”

“Now more than ever, our industry needs to go further and faster,” says Kelly. “We have the fuel and the technology for deployment, and it is now a case for regulation to move at the same pace. Specifically, we need coherent regulations on cylinder management across Africa, which is a key chokehold on progress. If we can make progress on this in 2026, we will have made a huge impact in unlocking LPG’s potential to drive a sustainable energy transition and ultimately save lives across Africa.”

In the Global South, LPG offers a cost-effective energy solution for over a billion people currently without grid access and directly leads to improved health and economic dignity for women and girls who bear the brunt of energy poverty.

Since 2024, the global clean cooking community has achieved significant momentum. U.S. $470 million has been disbursed across 22 African countries to accelerate deployment, with a total of U.S. $2.2 billion pledged. LPG has driven 70 percent of global clean-cooking gains since 2010, and unlike large-scale electrification, it is affordable and deployable today.

This progress, however, must be seen in the context of the past decade. The IEA’s World Energy Outlook, released in November 2025, reveals that progress on clean cooking access has decelerated in recent years. About 900 million Africans still lack clean fuel, including 90 percent of schools, resulting in severe health impacts and widespread deforestation. While 100 million people gained access to clean cooking in 2023, this represents a decline from 120 million in 2019. Accelerating this rate of change is crucial, as household air pollution from traditional cooking methods causes premature deaths, and transitioning to clean cooking solutions could reduce these fatalities by nearly two-thirds globally by 2040.

For more information on the Sub-Saharan Africa LPG Expo, please visit the event website here.

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