Improved Cookstove Project In Uganda

Audit Analysis

The Improved Cookstove Project in Uganda is a Gold Standard energy-efficiency project with VVB-confirmed additionality and a conservative national-default FNRB, but it is undermined by a 0% leakage deduction with contradictory justifications, the absence of a buffer pool, 16 corrective actions raised during verification, and a single monitoring period delivering only ~56% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation. The project's documentation, while spanning 11 sources, carries medium extraction confidence and one unidentified document, limiting full assurance.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% yet the verification report calls it 'quantified' while the monitoring report calls it 'deemed negligible'; the material findings further note that the substitution-within-households leakage assessment 'needed further demonstration' (verification report, 2023-03-31).
• ⚠16 corrective actions were required during verification, including missing ODA declaration, incomplete baseline survey description, inaccurate safeguarding justifications, and missing monitoring-device calibration data (verification report, 2023-03-31).
• ⚠FPIC was not conducted (stated as false in the extracted record), despite the project operating in a community context in Uganda.
• ⚠The single available monitoring period (2021) verified 95,762 tCO₂e against a pro-rata expectation of ~171,495 tCO₂e for one year of the five-year crediting period, representing only ~56% of the expected delivery.

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