GS1247 VPA 16 Improved Kitchen Regimes: Mwogo (Bugesera), Rwanda

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard cookstove project in Rwanda has a VVB-verified additionality assessment and no reversal events, but is undermined by a severe usage-rate gap (design assumption of 90–99% versus verified 23–28%), a 0% leakage deduction with a thin 'deemed negligible' justification, the absence of a buffer pool, and a large backlog of open corrective actions and findings. Eleven cross-document contradictions on key parameters (leakage, fNRB, usage rate, crediting period, benefit sharing) further erode confidence in the data record.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified usage rate of 23.3% (2022 monitoring report) or 28.3% (2021 monitoring report) is dramatically below the PDD design assumption of 90% (or 99% per the verification report material findings), indicating the project is operating at roughly one-quarter of its design capacity.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% with a 'deemed negligible' justification, yet the 2025 PDD references a 5% leakage deduction, and the 2020 monitoring report described leakage as 'quantified' — the justification for zero leakage in a cookstove project where users may revert to traditional stoves is not adequately supported.
• ⚠Five Forward Action Requests (FAR 01–05) remain open, covering SDG indicator evaluation, fNRB reporting at VPA level, and monitoring justification — unresolved compliance gaps.
• ⚠Eleven contradictions across documents on leakage, fNRB value and method, usage rate, ERR figures, additionality test type, benefit sharing, and crediting period create significant data-reliability concerns.

Credit Vintages