Local NGO seeks to reduce Carbon emission by providing Improved Cook-stoves to locals in Muhanga District

Hope of Family, a local NGO operating in Muhanga District in the Southern Province of Rwanda seeks the way to reduce carbon gas emission by providing Energy saving cookstove to at least 3,500 families in Muhanga District.

Wood-burning improved cook stoves will be distributed among households over the next 24 months under the Hope of Family stove project.

The distribution of these stoves will be targeting mainly two categories of people namely vulnerable communities and HoF beneficiaries including widows, household headed by children and the poorest households made of women and children.

The second category will be community members who are financially able to pay for the stove at subsided cost.

According to the project designing Team, the construction of improved cooking stoves will reduce the quantity of wood used to cook, and will thus facilitate sustainable forest management and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

For the risk management, Hope of Family will work closely with Rwanda Environment Management Authority and other actors in the Energy Sector.

Statistics show that in Muhanga, 13.1% of Households have access to electricity and are using electricity as source of lighting against 10.8% at national level.

This is to say that most of the District households are using other sources of lighting such as oil lamp (4.9%), candle (1.7%), lantern (56.8) and other source of energy (0.3%), according to the third Integrated Households Living Survey.

Expert highlight that the lack of electricity has considerable negative impact in the development of Muhanga District.

Moreover, 98,3% of District Households are using biomass as energy for cooking such as firewood (95.8%), charcoal (2.5%), while at national level these are 86.3% for firewood and 10.6% for charcoal.

This project of promoting the ceramic stove known as canarumwe (cook with one stick) in rural areas of Muhanga district- Southern Province of Rwanda, is a pilot project for the sustainable development of the market-based dissemination of improved cookstoves.

It will contribute to the government efforts to make a radical shift from the free dissemination strategy to market-based dissemination of Improved cook stoves (ICS,). This stove is locally manufactured and has been tested.