Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS)
 is a eight-year programme funded by UK Aid (FCDO) 



By integrating modern energy cooking services into the
 planning for electricity access, quality, reliability and sustainability, MECS
 hopes to leverage investment in renewable energies (both grid and off-grid) to
 address the clean cooking challenge. MECS is implementing a strategy focused on
 including the cooking needs of households into the investment and action on
 ‘access to affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy for all’.
 

Existing strategies are struggling to solve the problem of
 unsustainable, unhealthy but enduring cooking practices which place a
 particular burden on women. After decades of investments in improving biomass
 cooking, focused largely on increasing the efficiency of biomass use in
 domestic stoves, the technologies developed are said to have had limited impact
 on development outcomes. The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme
 aims to break out of this “business-as-usual” cycle by investigating how to
 rapidly accelerate a transition from biomass to genuinely ‘clean’ cooking (i.e.
 with electricity or gas).
 

Worldwide,
 nearly three billion people rely on traditional solid fuels (such as wood or
 coal) and technologies for cooking and heating. This has severe implications
 for health, gender relations, economic livelihoods, environmental quality, and
 global and local climates. According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
 household air pollution from cooking with traditional solid fuels contributes
 to three to four million premature deaths every year <a href="https://mecs.org.uk/about/#_edn1" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline">[I]–more than malaria and tuberculosis combined</a> <a href="https://mecs.org.uk/about/#_edn2" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline">[ii]</a>. Women
 and children are disproportionally affected by health impacts and bear much of
 the burden of collecting firewood or other traditional fuels.
 

<a href="https://mecs.org.uk/about/#_edn3" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline">Greenhouse
 gas emissions from non-renewable wood fuels alone total a gigaton of CO2e per
 year (1.9-2.3% of global emissions) [iii]</a>.
 The
 short-lived climate pollutant black carbon, which results from incomplete
 combustion, is estimated to contribute the equivalent of 25 to 50 percent of
 carbon dioxide warming globally – residential solid fuel burning accounts for
 up to 25 percent of global black carbon emissions <a href="https://mecs.org.uk/about/#_edn4" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline">[iv]</a>.
 Up
 to 34% of wood fuel harvested is unsustainable, contributing to climate change
 and local forest degradation. In addition, approximately 275 million people
 live in wood fuel depletion ‘hotspots’ – concentrated in South Asia and East
 Africa – where most demand is unsustainable <a href="https://mecs.org.uk/about/#_edn5" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline">[v]</a>.
 

Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) Programme in India
 Globally, MECS has been established as a prominent programme in the clean
 cooking domain and also become a strong player in India. This has the dual aims
 of supporting India to emerge as a Global Hub for clean cooking devices
 manufacturing for domestic and international markets and also supporting the
 Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign and Make in India initiative. In addition, it
 focuses on becoming a major convening and facilitation programme to achieve the
 shift to modern energy cooking within India, supporting the GoElectric
 campaigns by the Government of India. MECS, in India, has been instrumental in
 building critical connections amongst the key stakeholders and promoting modern
 energy-based clean cooking solutions.
 

Some of the key interventions of the programme in India
 are:
 

<ul style="text-align:justify">
 <li>
 Unique Entrepreneurship Development Programme in Clean
 Cooking (EDP CC) to nurture and scale up the start-ups and innovators in electric
 and solar cooking eco-system.
 </li>
 <li>
 Supporting Indian Innovative solutions, that succeeded in
 the Global Leap awards for Electric Pressure Cooker (EPC).
 </li>
 <li>
 Working with organizations to plan for large-scale
 commercial pilots for electric cooking using energy-efficient devices like
 electric pressure cookers and supporting them through funding, technology
 Identification  and manufacturer
 connects.
 </li>
 <li>
 Carrying out the first studies into how cooking with
 electricity is compatible with Indian cooking culture and confirming the energy
 and cost savings that can result leading to the publication of the Indian
 eCookbook Talk Series on Transition to Modern Energy in Cooking – A
 first-of-its-kind,  India-led global
 platform to engage with stakeholders on key issues in transitioning towards
 modern energy for cooking.
 
 </li>
</ul>

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