Safe Water Programme – Nigeria – VPA 07

Audit Analysis

The Safe Water Programme in Nigeria has VVB-confirmed additionality and actual survey-based usage monitoring, but is undermined by a 85-fold discrepancy in the functional newness/replacement baseline factor between reporting periods, a 0% leakage deduction with contradictory justifications, no buffer pool, and over 20 corrective actions including references to Kenya instead of Nigeria that suggest documentation was adapted from another project without adequate review.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠FNRB value of 82.3 (national default, 2024 verification report) versus 0.96 (local field, 2023 verification report) represents an 85-fold discrepancy that cannot be explained by a simple methodological change and raises serious questions about the validity of the emission factor used in the latest verification.
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% is justified as 'deemed negligible' in the monitoring report but listed as 'not addressed' in the verification report — the higher-priority VVB document indicates the issue was never properly resolved.
• ⚠Corrective actions include references to Kenya instead of Nigeria for baseline parameters (xf, EFb, water sources, stove technologies), strongly suggesting the project documentation was adapted from a different country's project without thorough review.
• ⚠Claimed and verified ERR figures are identical (1,232,137 tCO2e) in the 2024 verification report, indicating the VVB confirmed the project's own calculation rather than providing an independent verification figure.
• ⚠No buffer pool percentage is stated in any available document, leaving no quantified safeguard against potential reversal of credits.

Credit Vintages