GS5047 VPA33 African Improved Cookstoves and Clean Water Programme: Nyungwe Rainforest Cookstove Project I

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard cookstove project in Rwanda with a VVB-verified combined additionality test and a conservative FNRB of 0.98, but undermined by the absence of FPIC, no buffer pool, 22 stoves lost to breakage, and a long list of material findings and corrective actions. Eight cross-document contradictions—spanning leakage treatment, ERR figures, FNRB method, additionality status, and safeguards—erode confidence in the data record. The verified ERR exceeds the claimed figure by roughly 13% for the monitoring period, and the absence of a lifetime ex-ante estimate prevents a clean pro-rata delivery check.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠FPIC was not conducted despite the project distributing cookstoves to rural households in Rwanda; the 2026 verification report records this as false.
• ⚠Fourteen material findings and thirteen corrective actions were logged in the 2026 verification report, including inconsistent stove counts, wrong monitoring-period dates, a usage rate initially overstated at 100%, and a missing statement on stove repair and replacement.
• ⚠Eight contradictions across documents cover leakage treatment, ERR totals, FNRB method, additionality verification status, safeguards, grievance mechanism, usage rate, and crediting-period dates, indicating significant data-reliability issues.
• ⚠The lifetime ex-ante ERR estimate is not found in any document; the only claimed figure (79,343) may be a per-period value, making a clean pro-rata delivery comparison impossible.

Credit Vintages