Driving the Future of Clean Cooking Innovation
Across Africa, the future of clean cooking will depend not only on whether cleaner fuels are available, but on whether they can be delivered, refilled, trusted, and sustained in the realities of everyday use. For LPG, many of the biggest questions are no longer upstream. They sit downstream — in distribution, affordability, convenience, safety, customer retention, and the systems that determine whether adoption can last.
This is where some of the sector’s most important innovation is now needed. It is also where too many promising ideas still struggle to gain visibility, validation, and the kind of support that can help move them from local promise to wider relevance.
Forward7 Clean Cooking Award has been developed to address that gap.
Forward7 Clean Cooking Award is a global competition designed to identify and elevate LPG downstream innovations with the potential to strengthen clean cooking access across African markets. It is not a broad call for ideas in search of relevance. It is a challenge built around the real operating conditions that shape LPG performance on the ground, from urban delivery and frontier access to customer continuity and long-term use.
What makes the challenge distinctive is not only its thematic focus but also the audience it seeks to bring around to these ideas. Forward7 Clean Cooking Award is intended to create a space for private-sector actors, public institutions, and global clean-cooking stakeholders to engage with emerging solutions that warrant closer attention, stronger recognition, and, in some cases, deeper support.
Categories
The challenge is organised around three categories, each reflecting a critical area of downstream LPG performance in African markets. Within those categories, submissions are assessed across three maturity bands: Concept, Pilot, and Scale-Ready to ensure that early-stage ideas, tested models, and operating solutions are not judged at the same readiness level
The Urban Scale-Up Category
The Urban Scale-Up Category is designed for LPG downstream solutions that can unlock access, efficiency, and market growth in dense urban and peri-urban environments.
Submissions under this category should address the practical realities of urban LPG access and distribution. This includes innovations that improve how LPG is supplied, sold, delivered, monitored, financed, or experienced by end users in high-density settings. Solutions may focus on strengthening convenience, reducing friction in refill access, improving distribution efficiency, expanding safe retail reach, or making urban LPG systems more responsive to how households and small businesses actually buy and use fuel.
The Frontier Contexts Category
The Frontier Contexts Category is designed for LPG downstream solutions that can extend access into the environments where delivery is hardest, market conditions are least forgiving, and conventional operating models most often break down.
Submissions under this category should address the operational realities of serving frontier markets and hard-to-reach populations. This includes innovations that improve how LPG is transported, stored, distributed, financed, accessed, monitored, or sustained in areas with weak infrastructure, low service density, costly logistics, or unstable user conditions. Solutions may focus on extending distribution reach, reducing supply friction, lowering access costs, improving safety under constrained conditions, or enabling new service models when conventional approaches are too fragile or too expensive to maintain
The LPG Continuity & Loyalty Category
The LPG Continuity & Loyalty Category is designed for solutions that strengthen long-term LPG use by turning adoption into a sustained customer relationship
This category is intended to identify innovations that strengthen repeat use, deepen customer loyalty, and encourage households to remain committed LPG users over time.
Submissions under this category should focus on the design of incentive systems, customer engagement strategies, and loyalty mechanisms that make sustained LPG use both practical and rewarding. Forward7 is particularly interested in solutions that apply behavioural insights, digital tools, and community engagement to reinforce repeat refills and reduce the likelihood that
Eligibility
Eligible applicants may include:
Early-Stage Innovators and Startups
Companies or venture teams developing new technologies, business models, digital tools, or operating approaches that can improve LPG downstream access, affordability, safety, distribution performance, or consumer adoption.
Established LPG Operators and Energy Companies
Licensed distributors, LPG marketers, and other commercial operators introducing new downstream solutions, service models, or systems that can strengthen market performance and expand access.
NGOs and Social Enterprises
Non-profit organisations, mission-driven enterprises, and implementation-focused ventures developing practical solutions that improve LPG access, delivery, affordability, or continuity of use.
Additional Eligibility Conditions
To be considered eligible, all applicants must meet the following conditions:
Organisational Status
Applicants must represent a legally registered organisation, company, non-profit entity, or social enterprise. Individual applicants are not eligible unless applying on behalf of a registered organisation
Geographic Fit
Applicants must demonstrate that the proposed solution is intended for African markets, already operating in African contexts, or capable of delivering clear downstream LPG value within Africa.
Technology Scope
All submissions must focus on innovations that support or strengthen LPG downstream systems. Solutions focused primarily on other fuels or unrelated energy technologies are not eligible.
Stage Alignment
Applicants must submit their solution under the maturity band Concept, Pilot, or Scale-Ready that most accurately reflects its current stage of development.
Ownership and Submission Rights
Applicants must be able to demonstrate ownership of, or permission to submit, the proposed innovation and any supporting materials included in the application.
Integrity and Compliance
Applicants must comply with all applicable laws and regulatory requirements in the jurisdictions in which they operate. Submissions involving unlawful activity, unsafe practices, or material misrepresentation will not be considered.
Ineligible Applicants
The following are not eligible to participate in Forward7 Clean Cooking Award:
- Individual applicants not affiliated with a registered organisation
- Government ministries, government agencies, or public regulatory authorities acting in an official capacity
- Entities whose proposed solutions do not involve LPG downstream systems
- Organisations that cannot demonstrate the right to submit the proposed innovation
- Companies or organisations already funded by Forward7 organisations