Reduction of conflicts between refugees and local community for firewood procurement
Kigoma region in Tanzania is characterized by its own unique environmental and social dynamics and hosting over 200,000 refugees from neighboring countries, the region faces pressing issues in access to clean cooking solutions. Deforestation is starkly evident, with the region having lost over 133,000 hectares of crucial forest cover between 2000 and 2021, equivalent to a substantial 6.6% of its total forested area. This extensive loss compounds the issues of land degradation and environmental depletion, which in turn affects the lives and livelihoods of local communities. The situation is especially dire, with a majority of households in humanitarian settings relying heavily on firewood and inefficient traditional stoves. Scarcity of firewood sometimes leads to conflict between the local communities and refugees as they compete for the scarce resources. The unique situation in Kigoma particularly emphasizes the urgent need for clean cooking solutions to address the pressing environmental, health and social challenges.
World Food Programme has partnered with the National Carbon Monitoring Centre (NCMC) and the Kasulu and Kibondo District Councils to implement a clean cooking project for target households in Kasulu and Kibondo districts to address the access to clean cooking challenge in the refugee hosting areas by introducing improved firewood cookstoves with thermal efficiency higher than open fires to limit firewood demand and associated emissions. A total of 5.000 improved cookstoves will be distributed to an equal number of households in 10 villages within Kisulu and Kibondo districts.
Stakholders consultantion open until September 9th
A stakeholders meeting was organized physically on the 13th of June 2024 in Kasulu gathering local authorities and from the 18th to the 28th of June several meetings have been conducted in the targeted villages to collect feedbacks from the village authorities and community members.
Stakeholders are invited to provide feedbacks on the first activity of the project “Clean cooking for communities in Kigoma” online at this email address: projects@offgridsun.com until 09/09/2024
Here below you can dowload the programme and project documents as submitted to Gold Standards.
- Project design Document https://offgridsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GS12919_Stakeholder-Consultation-Report_V1.0-1.pdf
- Project description https://offgridsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Kigoma-Clean-cooking-non-technical-project-description-1.pdf
The project is going to be certified by Gold Standard to generate carbon credits that are going to be sold on the voluntary carbon market. The owner of the carbon credits is the National Carbon Monitoring Centre OffgridSun will assist NCMC in the carbon project development throughout the design phase, certification process of the project at Gold Standard, community sensitization on clean cooking and distribution of the improved cookstoves. The resulting revenue can be instrumental in scaling up the diffusion of improved cookstoves and their impacts in the future.
