At the beginning of this year the Vita team, our partner in Eritrea, were out in the field carrying out the annual monitoring for the safe water projects in Zoba Debub.
Zoba Debub is situated in the southern part of the country. It’s a largely rural region where access to safe water is a daily challenge and too often people have to rely on unprotected wells, lakes and other open water sources that are highly susceptible to contamination.
CO2balance’s project partner, Vita, has worked to identify broken down boreholes, renovate them and supply a maintenance programme to ensure that clean, safe water is delivered to the local communities.
The project started in 2016 and, over the past 6 years, a total of 87 boreholes have been repaired and maintained functional. This has lead to the reduction of almost 50,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year and provides safe water to more than 25,000 people.
The annual monitoring is very important to understanding the effectiveness of the project and build relationships with the local communities and local governments and to ensure the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are being achieved.
The project is annually verified under the award-winning Gold Standard Foundation, which provides high quality carbon offsetting as well additional environmental, social and community benefits:
- Less wood used by households, which reduces pressure on local ecosystems
- Reduction in time spent collecting water and gathering firewood to boil water which reduces the burden on the whole community
- Reduction in the incidence of illnesses and water-borne diseases caused by unsafe water and household air pollution
- Community training in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) techniques
- Supporting communities to manage and maintain their own water points
