Kinshasa - Eni reaffirms its commitment to promoting improved cooking systems at the "Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa" organized by the International Energy Agency. Eni has also endorsed the "Clean Cooking Declaration: Making 2024 the pivotal year for Clean Cooking" to accelerate universal access to more modern cooking systems, essential to ensuring access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy systems for all, as set out in United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7. The declaration was signed by governments, private sector, international organizations, and civil society actors attending the Summit, currently taking place in Paris. According to the International Energy Agency, about 1 billion people in Africa still cook their meals with rudimentary cooking systems, breathing in harmful smoke emitted from combustion. The lack of access to Clean Cooking systems has significant health, social, economic, and environmental impacts and contributes to 3.7 million premature deaths annually, especially affecting women and children. With this endorsement, Eni commits to continue promoting access to more modern cooking systems in Africa, which can bring benefits in terms of health, productivity, gender equality, forest conservation, biodiversity, and emission reduction. Eni launched a comprehensive Clean Cooking program in 2018, which currently involves approximately 500,000 people in Congo, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Angola, and has set the goal, announced at the Summit, of reaching 10 million across sub-Saharan Africa by 2027. Furthermore, Eni intends to facilitate the transition from improved solutions, which guarantee a reduction of over 60% in the use of non-sustainable woody biomass, to advanced solutions, which are characterized by the total elimination of unsustainable woody biomass use. With this evolution, the goal is to reach 20 million people by 2030, with an associated expenditure of $300 million. The Eni model stems from the company's extensive experience on the continent and aims to contribute to reducing the impact of cooking activities on deforestation and negative health effects on people. One distinctive feature of the Eni model is that stove distribution is provided free of charge, overcoming any financial barriers. Additionally, in order to promote entrepreneurship and community economy development, Eni supports the local production of cooking systems, assessing the potential of producers and helping to strengthen their technical and entrepreneurial skills, facilitating access to technology, capital, and the market. Finally, stove distribution is carried out through local and international organizations already present in the area, ensuring proper interaction with families and raising awareness about the benefits of clean cooking systems. The distribution of improved stoves - whose efficiency is certified according to Clean Cooking Alliance standards - allows Eni to generate carbon credits used in line with the company's Net-Zero strategy, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 through emissions reduction (scopes 1, 2, and 3) and offsetting residual emissions through high-quality carbon offset initiatives. (9colonne)