Approach
Piloting Integrated Climate Resilient Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn health services.
Renewable Clean Energy Baseline Assessment
To act in support of the connections between climate adaptation and access to clean energy sustainably, in 2023, PICSA Uganda with technical support from Auto Solution Plus Energy Limited conducted an Energy Access base line to understand the viability of market-based energy access solutions in rural and underserved settings in Moyo District and to recommend appropriate energy access interventions at the selected sites.
These assessments showed that most households in these rural and underserved communities continue to use inadequate energy sources with the use of dry cell batteries for lighting and firewood for cooking remaining the norm for many households.
The assessment further indicated that lack of an alternative source of fuel has resulted in the persistent use of biomass fuel (charcoal and wood fuel), with average wood fuel consumption standing at over 2kg/person/day. Our finding echoed the Uganda’s environment, report 2016, that indicated that 95% of Uganda’s energy is from biomass, 90% of Ugandans use fuelwood as the main source of energy with rural households relying on the fuel-inefficient stone stoves that lose 93% of the energy generated during cooking and led to increased deforestation population and health effects.
Advocacy on affordable Energy solutions among the rural communities in Moyo District
To promote climate adaptation through clean energy cookstoves, PICSA Uganda with technical support from Auto Solution Plus implemented a field advocacy to promote the use of the solar-powered cookstoves as one of the most eco-friendly and fuel-efficient technologies, in Metu, Lefori and Moyo sub county in Moyo District targeting the rural community members. The advocacy was conducted with the support of Moyo District local government. We reached 120 villages and 500 households with information on the use of solar-powered cooking cookstoves. Many households were interested in adapting and using the solar-powered cooling cookstoves. However, one of the main challenges to transitioning from biomass-based cooking to solar electric cooking is the high upfront capital costs.
PICSA Uganda has also contributed to the Clean Cooking stakeholders meeting in Moyo district on “Accelerating clean cooking as a nature-based climate solution” and experiences directly the “foundational and reinforcing role that clean cooking plays in nature-based solutions as well as forest conservation programs.
PICSA Uganda action and believe in transitioning to sustainable and cleaner sources of fuelwood is central to placing communities at the heart of nature-based solutions and addressing the core drivers of forest degradation and deforestation in the first place. This stakeholder meeting has cumulated into our current proposal on Adaptive and Affordable Clean Cooking Enables Sustainable Solutions that fit into the ethos which puts nature-based solutions at the core of its approaches within development programs in west Nile region of Uganda.
Challenges
Worldwide, estimated, 5 billion people lack access to clean, efficient, and affordable access to energy for cooking. Polluting fuels and technologies for cooking have a detrimental impact of health, nutrition, gender, and the environment, hindering the process of a sustainable development, in many cases, in already fragile settings.
The lack of progress in clean cooking, reportedly costs the world more than $4 trillion each year, driven by adverse impacts on health, climate, and gender equality. Left unaddressed, communities will continue face multiple adverse consequences, that are further amplified by poverty, climate change and future global pandemics.
Solutions
Providing access to an affordable and sustainable technology for cooking with solar powered cook seeks to address energy security not just for cooking but also to reduce environmental issues like deforestation, pollution, also gender inequality and poverty.
Impact To Date
OUR PARTNERS
