GS5658 VPA 36: “Access to energy for local development and resilience building in Uganda”

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard domestic energy-efficiency project in Uganda has VVB-confirmed additionality and documented safeguards, but is undermined by a project-specific baseline, a 0% leakage deduction, and a verification report containing 15 material findings including three corrective-action requests for calculation errors and a crediting-period mismatch. The project delivered roughly 124% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the most recent monitoring period, suggesting the baseline estimate was slightly conservative. Overall, the project is functional but carries moderate data-reliability and baseline-robustness risks.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Three Corrective Action Requests (CARs) in the verification report flag calculation errors in MR Table 2, crediting-period mismatch between the MR and the VPA-DD/SC application, and calculation errors for NPy and Project Estimate in MR Section E2 — indicating material MRV weaknesses.
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% despite the project type (domestic stove distribution) where displaced fuel use outside the project boundary is plausible; the PDD characterises leakage as 'deemed negligible' while the 2023 monitoring report calls it 'quantified', creating an unresolved inconsistency.
• ⚠No buffer-pool percentage or permanence mechanism is stated in any available document, leaving reversal risk for the 5-year crediting period unaddressed in the extracted record.
• ⚠The additionality test type is not identified in the extracted record, so the specific basis (investment, regulatory, or barrier test) cannot be independently assessed.

Credit Vintages