Rwanda: Clean and Improved Cooking DelAgua

Program Currently Inactive

Indoor air pollution, created when solid wood fuels are burned for cooking and heating, is responsible for almost 4 million premature deaths annually. It has serious health, environmental, and economic impacts, but improved cookstoves offer a solution. Ci-Dev is helping a private company, DelAgua, to establish and grow a sustainable retail market for improved cookstoves in Rwanda.

In partnership with the Ministry of Health, DelAgua distributed 100,000 improved cookstoves throughout western Rwanda. The company now wants to build on demand created by these distributions to develop a retail market for improved cookstoves.

Ci-Dev is purchasing emissions reductions generated from DelAgua’s distribution of improved cookstoves to help the company transition into a retail business. The funds will be used for awareness raising campaigns, training, and repair and maintenance services. The company plans to sell improved cookstoves to more than 450,000 families between 2017-2024.

The project is an example of how carbon finance can be used to unlock equity and debt financing to fund private sector market strategies.