Thanks to progress in Asia and Latin America, the number of people without access to clean cooking has been declining, but in sub-Saharan Africa, that number has never stopped growing. The number of people globally without clean cooking fell from 3 billion in 2010 to 2.3 billion in 2022. China, India and Indonesia all halved their populations without clean cooking access. These efforts relied largely on providing free stoves and subsidised canisters of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). During the same period, the number of people without clean cooking access continued to grow in sub-Saharan Africa, where clean cooking campaigns did not to keep pace with population growth. Today, 1 billion people on the continent—roughly four in every five—rely on highly polluting cooking fuels used in open fires or basic stoves. Reaching universal access to clean cooking requires delivering best practices to countries that have made little progress to date, with a special focus on rural areas. Nearly 300 million people need to gain access to cleaner cooking means each year to ensure universal access by 2030, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for half of the total. Delivering on this annual target would require matching the record years set in China, India and Indonesia combined over the last decade. It also requires stronger efforts in rural areas, where three quarters of those without access live today.