Inside Kenya’s kitchens: The hidden crisis of indoor air pollution killing 26,000 yearly
Tabu Taura (Mama Sadiki), 51, fries fish for sale at her business premises in Mavueni, Kilifi County, on August 27, 2025. She has been using firewood for the past two decades as the only affordable way to sustain her business and family.
What you need to know:
- Kenyan families inhale deadly smoke daily; clean cooking solutions remain blocked by poverty, tradition, and weak infrastructure.
- Toxic kitchen smoke kills thousands yearly, yet cultural beliefs and high costs stall Kenya’s clean cooking revolution.
As dawn breaks over Kilifi, Mama Sadik lights her three-stone fire. Within minutes, thick smoke fills her small kitchen, stinging her eyes and choking her throat. What she cannot see are the invisible killers hidden in that smoke—microscopic particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and toxic compounds that slowly attack her lungs, heart, and blood with every breath.
This daily ritual, repeated in millions of Kenyan households, is far deadlier than most realise. According to the State of the Global Air Report, indoor air pollution claimed about 23,000 lives in 2020, making it the eighth leading cause of premature deaths in Kenya—surpassing malaria and HIV combined. Yet for mothers like Mama Sadik, a widow in Mavueni village who has sold fried fish for more than two decades, the choice between survival and safety simply does not exist.
The smoke rising from Kenya’s kitchens is a toxic cocktail. Household air pollution is a proven driver of noncommunicable diseases ranging from stroke, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to kidney failure, cancers, and even mental health disorders.
Willah Nabukwangwa, of the Clean Air Africa research programme, explains that the danger is far greater than most people imagine. “Indoor air pollution is not just about coughing. Our studies show it causes respiratory disease, heart conditions, kidney problems, cancers, and even affects mental health and cognitive performance. Right now, more than 26,300 Kenyans die each year from this pollution, a number that has risen by 4,000 in just four years.”
The risks are particularly dire for children. More than half of pneumonia-related deaths among those under five are caused by soot from household air pollution. The smallest particles, PM2.5, lodge deep inside the lungs and bloodstream, causing cumulative damage that can also strike in minutes.
“High levels of carbon monoxide can kill within seconds. Even brief exposure to extreme PM2.5 levels while cooking can trigger severe respiratory illness. This is a silent emergency in our homes,” Willah warns.
Weight of tradition
A few metres from Mama Sadik’s smoky kitchen, Mama Hawe Lazima, in her late 80s, recalls a lifetime of the same struggle. Since childhood, she has known no other way of cooking but on three stones and firewood. Even today, she still walks long distances to collect sticks, sometimes battling exhaustion or even encountering snakes along the way.
“It is what I grew up with. Food won't taste the same with those new stoves. I would rather die using firewood,” she insists.
Her defiance points to one of the biggest obstacles to clean cooking adoption: deep cultural attachment to traditional methods. Many households believe food cooked over firewood tastes better, while modern alternatives are viewed as incapable of replicating those flavours.
Beyond culture, practical barriers add to the resistance. Some improved stoves are poorly designed, incompatible with local cooking practices, or difficult to use—making it harder to convince families to change habits.
Kilifi, once scarred by drought and hunger, is now also gripped by this slow-burning health crisis. Even as rains return sporadically, many households remain tethered to firewood and charcoal, not out of preference but because cleaner alternatives remain unaffordable.
Cost and infrastructure barriers
The most immediate barrier is economic. Only 17 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans use clean cooking options, largely because of prohibitive costs. For rural households, informal settlements, and refugee communities with irregular incomes, the upfront expense of LPG cylinders, modern stoves, or electricity connections is far beyond reach.
Dr Faith Wandera, Director of Renewable Energy at the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, highlights another obstacle: supply. “Kenya has no large-scale local manufacturing facilities for modern cookstoves. Most appliances—from LPG cylinders to electric pressure cookers and even biogas units—are imported, driving up costs. Bioethanol appliances exist, but fuel supply is still limited.”
Infrastructure gaps make matters worse. Unreliable electricity excludes many rural areas from electric cooking solutions, while sparse gas distribution networks mean even households willing to use LPG often struggle with costly refills.
When modern stoves break down, the lack of spare parts and repair services in remote areas pushes families back to firewood. Without reliable maintenance systems, adoption remains fragile.
Gender and smoke burden
Women bear the brunt of this crisis. They spend long hours collecting firewood and cooking in smoke-filled kitchens, making them the most exposed to harmful emissions.
At the recent Clean Cooking Week exhibition in Kilifi, Nicholas Hare voiced his frustrations. “When I'm at home, I see my wife suffer because of the smoke. She coughs and struggles to breathe. Sometimes I have to take her to the hospital. I just hope these new products will help us and reduce the illnesses.”
Despite these challenges, local solutions are emerging. Groots Kenya, a grassroots women’s network, has mobilised its 3,000 women-led groups to champion safer cooking methods both at home and in policy spaces.
Kilifi is among three counties to launch a clean cooking initiative. Governor Gideon Mung’aro, whose county hosted the forum, argues that bold action is needed. "Our communities have faced drought, hunger, and now the health burden of unsafe cooking. That is why we are investing in solar-powered pumps, desalination plants, and clean cooking programmes. Sustainable energy is not a luxury; it is a requirement for our growth."
The government’s Clean Cooking Strategy is also exploring a subsidy programme to help vulnerable families access cleaner fuels and appliances. “It has not yet been rolled out, but it is in the action plan,” Faith noted.
Partnerships are growing. The government, the Clean Cookstove Association of Kenya, the Petroleum Institute of East Africa, and international allies are working to create a stronger environment for the sector.
Already, table-banking groups, youth innovators, and NGOs are fuelling the transition. More than 4,000 women have been trained as clean cooking champions, aligning with Kenya’s target of universal clean cooking access by 2028.
