CO2balance’s Uganda projects have recently received a visit from the UK team as part of an annual audit of the safe water projects. Taking place in April and lasting over 2 weeks, the trip covered projects operating in the Western, Central and Northern regions of the country. With over 800 handpumps actively functioning in Uganda, it is the UK team’s responsibility to regularly audit a representative sample of the water points to gather an accurate picture of the project’s status on the ground. Elements such as maintenance and monitoring programmes, community engagement, and WASH practices are evaluated and internal discussions are conducted to highlight any areas of improvement.
A key part of the trip was to meet with Local District Government’s in the areas where CO2balance operate. The purpose was to review our partnership and renew or create new Memorandum of Understanding Agreements to ensure all parties are aware of current activities and responsibilities. This strengthened agreement will allow for more efficient collaboration and for all parties to harmonise their efforts on contributing towards Uganda’s National Development Plan.
A number of CO2balance’s projects are also transitioning to the newly released Safe Drinking Water Supply methodology under Gold Standard, following 7 years of operating. As part of the new methodological requirement changes, CO2balance are working to install sensors on project hand pumps to measure the volume of water flowing from the pump over the year, contributing to the high quality data collected and applied to emission reduction calculations. Monitoring of water quality is transitioning from focusing on the water source to the household, requiring water quality testing to take place at the point of consumption. In order to support communities in avoiding contamination within households and in water containers, CO2balance have increased monitoring on the cleanliness of water containers and are implementing interventions where necessary such as more frequent, tailored WASH training.
