south pole group to support sustainable charcoal production in West Africa

south pole group has secured a mandate extension from German Bank KfW to support the development of a standardised baseline for sustainable charcoal production in West Africa. The assignment now covers Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in addition to Senegal.

Establishing a standardised baseline will ease access to carbon finance for renewable charcoal initiatives, which is vital for Subsaharan Africa where most of households energy consumption comes from wood resources - a key driver of deforestation. The programme will target multiple locations country-wide, starting with obvious urban area of high density of population and charcoal consumption, and spanning to wider peri-urban and rural areas which still host around half of the population of Cote d'Ivoire and in which the utilization of wood fuel is high given the lack of alternatives. On average, the wood fuel consumption by households for cooking purposes equivals to 5.78 tonnes/y, and the most commonly used cooking appliances undoubtedly qualify as traditional/inefficient cookstoves.

The proposed Gold Standard programme of activities aims at significantly reducing wood fuel consumption of low-income Ivorian households by providing them with affordable improved cookstoves in replacement of their low-efficiency three-stone fires and traditional stoves. The program is financed by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment through the Foundation « Future of the Carbon Market ».