The kitchen is the last mile — electricity reaches 99.5% of Bangladeshis, but only 12% of rural people cook with clean fuels

Introduction

Bangladesh has largely finished one energy job: in 2024, 99.5% of its people had access to electricity.¹ A second job has barely started. In the same year, only 29% primarily used clean fuels and technologies for cooking, which means roughly seven in ten people still cook mainly with wood, crop residues, dung or other polluting fuels or stoves.² Under the definition used by the World Health Organization (WHO), kerosene does not count as clean.

12%

Share of the rural population primarily using clean cooking fuels and technologies in Bangladesh, 2024 — against 67% in urban areas.

An existing DEEPLAB data insight set the national figure beside electricity. This article asks who is left behind, how Bangladesh compares with its neighbours, and what the health data say about the cost of that gap.

A city–village divide that is getting wider

In 2000, clean-cooking access was 38% in urban areas and 1% in rural areas. By 2010 it had reached 41% and 2%. Since then both have risen, but unevenly: urban access climbed to 67% in 2024, while rural access reached only 12%.³ In percentage points, the urban–rural gap was 39 in 2010 and 55 in 2024.

The rural series barely moved for a decade. It stood at 2% in 2005 and 2010, was 4% in 2014 and 7% in 2018, and reached 12% in 2024.³ The national figure has risen from 22% in 2018 to 29% in 2024, an average of about 1.2 points a year.² That is an arithmetic observation, not a forecast, but at that pace the country would still be decades from universal access.

These are modelled estimates compiled by the Energy Progress Report partnership from household surveys, and they describe a household’s primary cooking fuel. A household counted as using clean fuel may still cook some meals on a traditional stove.

The lowest access in the neighbourhood, and slow progress

Among the South Asian countries in the chart, Bangladesh had the lowest access in 2010 (12%) and again in 2024 (29%).² Afghanistan, at 30%, and Sri Lanka, at 31%, were barely ahead. India went from 34% to 81%, Pakistan from 36% to 51%, Nepal from 27% to 45% and Bhutan from 64% to 93%.² Bangladesh gained 17 points in 14 years; India gained 47.

The data do not explain why paths diverged, and national circumstances differ, so the comparison should be read as a benchmark and not a league table. It does show that much faster progress in a large South Asian country is possible.

What household smoke does to health

Cooking over a fire or a simple stove fills homes with fine particles and carbon monoxide. The WHO estimates that household air pollution caused about 2.9 million deaths worldwide in 2021, around 309,000 of them among children under five. It attributes 44% of all pneumonia deaths in under-fives to it, and most of the adult toll comes from heart disease (32% of the 2.9 million), stroke (23%), lower respiratory infections (21%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (19%) and lung cancer (6%).⁴

For Bangladesh, WHO’s modelled estimate for 2019 is 103 deaths per 100,000 people attributed to household air pollution, after adjusting for the age structure of the population. That is more than India (77) and Sri Lanka (68), and less than Pakistan (117), Nepal (131) and Afghanistan (171).⁵ The comparable WHO estimate for ambient (outdoor) air pollution in Bangladesh is 66 per 100,000, so the age-standardized rate linked to household smoke is the larger of the two.⁶

Two cautions apply. These are model-based estimates for 2019, the latest year in the series, and the national figure hides large differences between households. Second, the death rate attributed to household air pollution and the share of people using clean fuels are related but not identical: the former also reflects ventilation, cooking time, health care and the general health of the population. DEEPLAB’s earlier article on outdoor air pollution covers the other half of the burden.

The WHO also notes that, globally in 2021, 49% of rural residents relied on polluting fuels and technologies against 14% of urban residents.⁴ The Bangladeshi gap is wider: in the same year, 90% of rural and 37% of urban residents did not have clean cooking, from the 10% and 63% clean-access shares reported.³

What it will take

The sources used here describe the problem; they do not evaluate programmes in Bangladesh. The following options follow from the pattern in the data and from WHO guidance, and are for policymakers and the agencies involved to weigh:

• Target rural households explicitly. National averages hide a rural access rate of 12%. Programmes and subsidies that are not aimed at villages are unlikely to close a 55-point gap.
• Treat cooking as a separate energy-planning target. Near-universal electrification did not bring clean cooking with it. Planning, budgets and monitoring for household fuels need their own indicators and owners, alongside the power-sector plan.
• Use WHO’s definition of “clean”. WHO guidance discourages kerosene and recommends against unprocessed coal; clean fuels at the point of use include electricity, LPG, natural gas, biogas, solar, alcohol fuels and biomass stoves that meet its emission targets.⁴ Any scheme should be judged against that standard, not only on stove counts.
• Make the supply chain reach villages. Whatever the fuel, households need affordable access and reliable refills or maintenance. Piloting different fuels and cookers in different regions, with outcomes measured, would show what works.
• Measure health outcomes. Bangladesh’s household air pollution estimates come from global models. National survey questions on primary cooking fuel and kitchen ventilation, and local health data, would let the effect of programmes be seen directly.
• Join up the air-quality agenda. Indoor and outdoor pollution both reach people’s lungs, so health, energy and environment ministries have a shared stake in the outcome.