Our Gambia Safe Water project has issued credits for the second time, and this is nothing but exciting! Why? Because aside from leading to a financial commodity which sale ensures project sustainability and continuous impact in our target communities, it also signals a 360 monitoring-round success of project activities, while rubber stamping the authenticity of our initiatives and interventions.
Now, some more of background into project country…
The Gambia is a largely rural country where local people typically use wood fuel on inefficient three-stone fires to boil their water for purification. This process results in the release of greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of wood – this can be avoided if a technology that does not require fuel (wood or fossil) supplies clean water desired by households.
According to UNICEF, only 34 per cent (one third) of households are using safely managed drinking water services, with this figure expected to further drop down in consideration to rural communities.
To stagnate the need to boil water which has greenhouse gas emission effects, and to provide a safer source of water, boreholes have become a very important resource.
However, many existing boreholes in The Gambia have fallen into disrepair because maintenance programmes have been poorly managed or proven too expensive, and this is just where Co2balance comes in…
Our Gambia project supports the provision of safe water using rehabilitated borehole technology. By providing alternative safe water, the project ensures that households have less need for firewood burning which is typically the local process of water purification. Ultimately, this results in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion process.
Our recent credits issued of 65,901 ERs covers the second project monitoring period of 15th October 2020 – 15th October 2022. This involved a total of 80 boreholes.
To wrap up this piece, here is some more precise details of our project impact:
- 20,078 more people consume safe water from project boreholes.
- 73% reduction in total time spent collecting water and firewood for project activity in year, (96% of the time, a female is responsible for collection water, per baseline)
- 20% of project beneficiaries use saved time on income generating activities, with 7% using saved time on education and training.
Our third monitoring period has already begun, and we can wait to share related details with you soon!