GS1247 VPA 211 Sierra Leone Safe Water

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard safe water project in Sierra Leone has VVB-confirmed additionality and no reversal events, but is undermined by severe operational issues including 4,193 borehole failure days, two retired boreholes, a 12-percentage-point drop in usage rate, and the absence of a buffer pool. The project is significantly under-delivering relative to ex-ante estimates due to GS-TAC caps, which limits over-crediting risk but raises questions about baseline realism. Extensive corrective actions and 13 inter-document contradictions reduce confidence in the data record.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠4,193 total borehole failure days recorded during the monitoring period, with two boreholes subsequently retired from the project
• ⚠Leakage deduction reduced from 5% in the PDD to 0% in the 2026 verification report with only a 'deemed negligible' justification
• ⚠Usage rate dropped from 93.98% to 81.73% between monitoring periods, indicating declining project performance
• ⚠Lack of exit strategy explicitly flagged as posing risks to beneficiaries

Credit Vintages