The African Energy Chamber (AEC) has delivered its sharpest rebuke yet of the International Energy Agency (IEA), accusing the Paris-based body of actively working against the continent it claims to serve while more than 900 million Africans remain without access to clean cooking solutions.
In a statement released on Wednesday, February 19, the Chamber argued that the IEA has strayed decisively from the energy security mandate it was founded on in 1974 and has instead become an instrument that restricts the very investment Africa needs to confront its most urgent development crisis.
The timing is deliberate. Pressure on the IEA is escalating on multiple fronts. United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking at the IEA’s 2026 Ministerial this week, made clear that Washington is dissatisfied with the agency’s current direction and has signalled that the US could withdraw unless the IEA returns to prioritising practical energy access goals over what he characterised as climate-driven modelling.
At the same ministerial, Secretary Wright announced the launch of a Clean Cooking Accelerator Program targeting Africa, where an estimated one billion people still rely on traditional fuels such as wood and charcoal. He noted that an annual investment of $4 billion could significantly accelerate clean cooking deployment across the continent, potentially lifting nearly two billion people out of energy poverty.
The AEC welcomed the American intervention but was unsparing about the structural damage it says has already been done. The Chamber argued that the IEA’s 2021 net-zero roadmap, updated in 2025, was used by global financiers and multilateral institutions as justification for cutting off capital from African hydrocarbons. Major institutions including BNP Paribas (BNPP) and HSBC have halted new oil and gas financing, while the World Bank announced in 2019 that it would end direct investments in upstream oil and gas.
NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, left little ambiguity about the stakes: “Africa will not make energy poverty history by abandoning the very resources that can fund its development. Oil and gas are not the problem; underdevelopment is.”
The Chamber pointed to projects including Angola Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Congo LNG, the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development straddling Senegal and Mauritania, and Equatorial Guinea’s Gas Mega Hub as examples of infrastructure that could simultaneously expand domestic power generation, accelerate clean cooking fuel distribution and generate export revenues. With approximately 592 million Africans also lacking electricity access, the Chamber argues that dismissing these projects on ideological grounds carries a direct human cost.
The AEC acknowledged that the IEA is showing signs of movement. The agency recently announced it will host the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA), originally launched in 2010, integrating the initiative within its structure to accelerate universal clean cooking access in partnership with governments and industry. A second Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa is also scheduled for July 9 and 10 in Nairobi, co-chaired by Kenya’s President William Ruto and Secretary Wright alongside IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
But the Chamber warned that institutional gestures are not enough. Ayuk put it plainly: “Reform at the IEA must go beyond press releases. It must include a recalibration of outlooks to reflect differentiated development pathways, a rejection of blanket investment bans and an acknowledgment that African hydrocarbons are compatible with global climate goals. We don’t want aid; we want partnerships.”
The continent, the Chamber insisted, has both the resources and the private sector appetite to fund its own clean cooking transition. What it lacks is an IEA willing to count that as progress.
