United Nations

Simoshi outsources institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) from the local manufacturer Ugastove and promotes and sells them to schools and institutions. Carbon finance has allowed Simoshi to move schools away from using 3-stone fires when cooking their daily meals. This project  installed the first IICS back in March 2016, and up to date, Simoshi is still repairing/maintaining all those same IICS for free to all participating schools, monitoring and training their kitchen staff, ensuring the firewood reductions are achieved as when they were first deployed and put in use.The behavioural transformation Simoshi brings to schools through an effective management of change and subsequent support to the continuous use of the IICS enables both the participating schools and Simoshi to recycle a percentage of the stream of carbon credit returns, to further expand the number of schools that move up in the energy ladder.

In 2011 the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development declared that 95% of schools in Uganda cooked with traditional cook stoves and open fires, with less than 2.000 improved cook stoves being disseminated in the past 6 years.

Simoshi sells the IICS through payment schemes that include instalment modalities, allowing schools to comfortably pay back their debt throughout the school year, using the money saved from firewood NOT consumed to pay back for the acquired IICS.

Simoshi's strong relationship of trust built with schools through monitoring, on-going staff training and the 5 year free annual IICS maintenance are the added on value and innovative project's pillars necessary for the behavioural transition to happen. IICS is a product that is prone to rapid deterioration if not maintained regularly. Nevertheless the annual free service provided to the IICS and the school is crucial in shaping future customer relations, product expectations and ultimately behavioural change. Schools face tremendous financial constrains and attention to the kitchen environment is the least of their priorities. Nevertheless, they play a crucial role in the school finances, the health impact for children and cooks, the deforestation impact and subsequent CO2 emissions.

Videos of the project can be found in the following links:

https://vimeo.com/172572668 ;  https://vimeo.com/339817605 and https://vimeo.com/192091914

Through its intervention, this project achieves nine United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): SDG 1- No poverty, SDG 3 - Good health and well-being, SDG 4 - Quality education, SDG 5 - Gender equality, SDG 7 - Affordable Clean Energy, SDG 8 - Decent Work and economic growth, SDG 13 - Climate action, SDG 15 - Life on land, SDG 17 - Partnerships for the goals.

To read more about the SDG impacts of the project, please click here.

Supporting information on cookstove benefits can also be found here:

- Health issues of traditional cook stoves http://cleancookstoves.org/impact-areas/health/

- Environment issues of traditional cook stoves http://cleancookstoves.org/impact-areas/environment/index.html

- Livelihood issues of traditional cook stoves http://cleancookstoves.org/impact-areas/livelihoods/index.html

- Gender issues of traditional cook stoves http://cleancookstoves.org/impact-areas/women-gender/index.html

For more information on the social benefits of this project, you can read its Sustainable Development Co-benefits report here.

To read the registered Project Design Document, please click here.