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The former captain of the Ghana Black Stars, Stephen Appiah and reggae singer, Rocky Dawuni joined fellow Clean Cookstoves ambassador, Hillary Clinton at a global submit in New York over the weekend. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership led by the United Nations Foundation, has announced that a global community of clean cooking advocates and supporters has collectively committed $413 million over three years to further mobilize the clean cooking sector and advance the widespread adoption of clean cooking solutions. The announcement was made on the second day of the Cookstoves Future Summit, where more than 70 representatives from government, the private sector, investors, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations made commitments during the Alliance�s inaugural pledging event. Bilateral donor commitments, comprising both financial and policy commitments, totaled $286 million, including those made by Summit co-hosts Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The private sector committed to mobilize an additional $127 million, including a $100 million fund created through a partnership between the Alliance, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, other development finance institutions, and private investors, which will support the scale-up of social enterprises that advance and deploy clean cookstoves and fuels. Above and beyond the bilateral commitments and private sector pledges, more than $250 million in commitments were announced by implementing countries, including Summit co-host Ghana. These Alliance partner nations � whose citizens currently rely on unclean and inefficient traditional cookstoves or open fires � outlined plans for programs aimed at increasing access to clean, efficient cookstoves and fuels. �The commitments made today clearly demonstrate the global resolve to end the scourge of unsafe exposure to cook smoke and to give families the chance to cook and live in safe and healthy environments,� said Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. �When the Alliance launched four years ago, it had the support of 19 founding partners. Today, that number has swelled to more than 1,000 partners, and the group of commitment-makers around the table has similarly expanded. The global community has taken a clear stand in support of the clean cooking sector, and implementing countries have likewise made clear their steadfast determination to tackle the issue of household air pollution in a way that yields tangible results.� The Cookstoves Future Summit was co-hosted by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as government officials from four of the largest commitment-makers: Baroness Lindsay Northover, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for International Development, United Kingdom; B�rge Brende, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway; Hanna Tetteh, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integrations, Ghana; and Dr. Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. The four co-hosts representing countries announced their nation�s commitments at the opening of the pledging session. �We have to redouble our efforts to get more clean and efficient products in the hands and homes of families everywhere,� said Clinton. �We can rededicate ourselves to doing everything we can to help more people in more places to breathe more easily, work more safely and live healthier lives.� �Millions of people are needlessly dying just through the basic act of cooking. Only by generating easy access to affordable, clean and efficient cookstoves will this end,� said Northover. �A thriving commercially viable market-place is vital to deliver the sustainable and universal access to clean cookstoves and fuels needed. With 2.7 billion people relying on open fires and traditional biomass stoves to cook their food, the market potential for change is huge and the impact we can have on people�s lives is just as big.� �I would like to thank the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves for arranging this Summit, and starting a global mobilization for clean cookstoves,� said Brende. �This is a field where we cannot afford not to act. We know the solutions, we know that action will have immediate positive impacts on people�s health and livelihoods, and on our climate. At the same time, we know that the costs of inaction are enormous, both in terms of lives lost and economic losses. We need to make sure that the cookstoves used are clean enough so that women survive making food for their families, and their children stay healthy. Norway will contribute an additional $40 million over four years to this global effort, and I look forward to taking part in it.� �Ghana is committed to ensuring that by the year 2020 we will have migrated 50 percent of the population to using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking instead of solid fuels, and improved cookstoves for those who are unable to have LPG access,� said Tetteh. �It will make a world of difference.� �USAID is pioneering a new model of development � one grounded in a focus on harnessing innovation, public-private partnerships, and local leadership to deliver real, measurable results,� said Shah. �Working in partnership with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, we are creating game-changing solutions in energy, finance, and business that will unlock a brighter future for the world�s most vulnerable people.� The commitments made include both grants and investment funding. They will form the foundation necessary for the Alliance and the sector to accelerate its work toward achieving the goal of 100 million households adopting clean cookstoves and fuels by 2020. In the first four years of its existence, the Alliance helped spur the adoption of clean cooking solutions in more than 20 million homes, putting it ahead of target for the 2020 goal. To view a complete list of commitments made, please visit: http://www.cookstovesfuturesummit.org/commitments/