About the Health and Energy Platform of Action

Well into the 21st century, some 3 billion people around the world, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, still rely on polluting fuels and technology combinations to meet their basic daily energy needs for cooking. The resulting household air pollution leads to 3.8 million premature deaths each year from noncommunicable diseases (including heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer), as well as pneumonia. Health and livelihood risks are greatest for women, children and infants from polluting cooking practices. The use of traditional biomass for cooking also puts our climate at risk, with household air pollution contributing to approximately 1 gigaton of CO₂/year (~2 % of global emissions) and is one of the greatest sources of black carbon globally.

An estimated 1 billion people globally are served by health facilities without electricity¹. For example, in 11 sub-Saharan African countries around 25 per cent of health-care facilities lacked any electricity². While most large hospitals have access to electricity, access rates drop dramatically for rural clinics.  Access to energy plays a critical role in the functionality of health-care facilities and the quality, accessibility and reliability of health services delivered. Electricity is necessary for the operation of critically needed medical devices such as vaccine refrigeration, surgical emergency, laboratory and diagnostic equipment, as well as for the operation of basic amenities such as lighting, cooling, ventilation and communications.

Given the important linkages between closing the energy access gap and improving people’s health and wellbeing, it is critical to have integrated approaches to health and energy challenges. 

Enhanced cooperation among actors in the health and energy sectors is critical to health improvement and health protection. By working more closely with the energy sector, the health sector can better ensure the energy demands of health facilities are understood and met with cleaner and sustainable energy options, and cooking solutions deployed are clean for health;  both of which are critical steps in achieving health targets for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and pneumonia prevention, vaccine coverage, digital health as well as improve emergency preparedness and response. By educating patients about the health benefits and advocating for the adoption of clean energy by the community, the health sector can drive up consumer demand of clean and sustainable energy.

Recognizing how essential access to clean and sustainable energy is to disease prevention and treatment, the WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced his commitment to enhancing cooperation between the health and energy stakeholders at WHO’s first conference on Air Pollution and Health. Building upon this call, in 2019, WHO with UNDP, UN DESA and World Bank and the strong support of the International Renewable Energy Agency, and other key stakeholders established the Health and Energy Platform of Action (HEPA). This Platform aims to build the political, and financial commitment and as well as strengthen the capacity of the health and energy sectors to work together to ensure universal access to clean and sustainable energy to protect health.

The long-term vision of the Global Platform is to improve the health and livelihoods of the poorest populations though the adoption of clean and sustainable energy. With an initial focus on clean cooking and health-care facility electrification, the Platform aims to catalyse the scale of results required to achieve SDG 3 on health, SDG 7 on energy and others on gender (goal 5) and climate (goal 13) by:

• mobilising political commitment, support and resources, and find ways of encouraging new public and private commitment from the energy and health sectors, climate change action and other arenas; 
• promoting development of global or country implementation road maps for the priority areas of action; 
• demonstrating leadership by identifying significant actions and initiatives with relevant stakeholders, with the overall objective of generating action and maximizing impact on the ground; 
• conducting  advocacy and outreach at high-level international engagements related to the SDGs, especially those on health, energy, environment, gender and climate change; and 
• promoting an interdisciplinary approach, engaging a variety of stakeholders at the global, regional and national level and building on existing initiatives, while avoiding duplication of effort, fostering alignment and creating strong synergies. 

The Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030 provides the political impetus to act decisively in addressing energy and health linkages, especially clean cooking challenges and the lack of energy access in healthcare facilities, and globally aiming to ensure the accelerated deployment of sustainable, scalable and replicable solutions. Without urgent action, however, the world will fall short of achieving SDG 3 (health) and SDG 7 (energy), and consequently other goals especially on gender (SDG 5) and climate (SDG 13).

¹Practical Action (2013), Poor People’s Energy Outlook 2013.
²Adair-Rohani, Heather, et al. "Limited electricity access in health facilities of sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review of data on electricity access, sources, and reliability." Global Health: Science and Practice 1.2 (2013): 249-261.