Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Among the serious issues facing the environment in Rwanda is the wide use of the traditional three stones firewood stoves for cooking and for boiling drinkable water, especially in rural areas. 
According to the National Strategy for Transformation (2017-2024), more than 83.3% of households in 2014 were dependent on firewood as a source of energy for cooking. Currently, some 1.9 million out of 2.41 million Rwandan households use wood and charcoal for cooking, which contributes to the global warming and climate change in general. 

Also, according to the report from the National institute of statistics of Rwanda in 2012, the use of firewood is likely to be 93% in rural areas and about 31% in urban areas.
To alleviate the consumption of biomass energy, the Government of Rwanda is promoting the installation of energy-saving stoves in households. Rwanda aims to reduce the percentage of households using wood fuel and charcoal for cooking from 83.3% in 2014 to 42% in 2024. 

For this reason RDIS organization has embarked on projects of distributing Improved Cook Stoves, which save more than 65% of firewood, due to its thermal efficiency of 29.5%; Thereby reducing emissions, saving forests, saving time and money from poor families. 

RDIS has elaborated this project proposal in collaboration with local administration during our quarterly meetings of Districts Joint Action Development Forums. The proposal was validated in the stakeholders' consultation meeting, which has brought together senior staff of the Ministry of Environment and Rwanda Environment Management Authority(REMA).

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In 2017 we launched this project under the name of Carbon Credit Emission Reduction (CCER) and registered it with the Clean Development Mechanism and the Gold Standard. In this project for distributing Improved Cook Stoves in Rwanda, women are the agents of change and the true heroes of climate movement, because they are the one who generate Carbon Credits.

Our project is playing an important role with climate change mitigation measures through the promotion of the use of Improved Cook Stoves in Rwanda. A separate but complementary activity involves the supply of Ceramic Water Filters. These are seen both as development projects and as carbon emission reduction project. 

Our project is therefore contributing to changing the paradigm in the way we think about climate change and development, by allowing those that used to be called project beneficiaries‚ to become the agents of change, the heroes of the climate movement. 

In addition, our project empowers young girls by reducing their school dropout, because they are no longer spending long time for collecting firewood and for cooking. They use the saved time for learning or for attending schools and thus being empowered by our project.

The benefits of this project go beyond the reduction of firewood consumption and environmental protection. In addition to the Goal 13: climate actions, this project aims by reaching also the following sustainable development goals (SDGs): 

Goal 1: No poverty
Similarly to this goal, this project is reducing family expenses related to buying firewood every day by 2/3. As per success stories of the users of our improved cook stoves, a bunch of firewood which would be consumed in a week, these days, the same bunch lasts three weeks. 

Goal 3: Good health and well being
Our stoves reduce significantly eyes and respiratory diseases as expressed in success stories by the users during our continuous tracking and monitoring exercises, and therefore contribute to attaining this social development goal. 

In addition, the money saved on firewood by families is either being allocated to health insurances or other crucial needs. 
The hygiene is improved in the families using the improved cook stoves of RDIS especially in the kitchen where ash is no longer spread everywhere, rather, collected for farm purposes. The security and safety of kids is increased due to the fact that; the installation of stoves is done in a way it protects them from burns.

Success story: I am no longer suffering from smokes in kitchen, no eye irritation. I can now use only 4 pieces of firewood for cooking beans, while I could use even 20 pieces on a traditional stove. Furthermore, I am no longer allocating much time for fetching firewood, given less fuel is enough to cook my food. When my stove is hot, I can cook other meals like rice, banana, or cassava bread without necessarily adding more firewood. It is a good way of saving money and reducing deforestation , said Francoise MURORUNKWERE from Gashonga sector, in Rusizi District.

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