DelAgua Live Well
MLC Vanguard | Created by DelAgua
DelAgua Live Well provides a high-performance cookstove integrated with long term education and support, free of charge, to rural populations living in poverty. The project is funded by carbon financing, powered by bespoke technology and delivered by over 7000 local community-based workers. The project’s long-term partnership with host governments includes signed LoAs authorizing Corresponding Adjustments under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and to date, DelAgua has distributed 1.6 million stoves, impacting over 7 million people in Rwanda, The Gambia and Sierra Leone.
+7 million Lives Impacted
Clean cooking is a transformative solution that drives positive change across multiple dimensions, including health, the environment, and economic well-being. DelAgua has distributed 1.6 million stoves, impacting over 7 million people in Rwanda, The Gambia and Sierra Leone.
The stove requires 71% less wood than a traditional 3-stone fire. This impacts the environment and deforestation rates, household health from reduced smoke, and delivers significant time savings to women and children due to reduced time required for collecting firewood and cooking, allowing more time for children’s education and, for women, time for income-generating activities, farming, family and social support.
By using the DelAgua stove respiratory health is hugely improved due to a 73% reduction in household air pollution when using the stove outdoors and a 27.7% reduction in cookstove emission exposure among children. Families can quickly and easily boil water, ensuring they always have access to safe drinking water. This reduces waterborne diseases and results in a 46% reduction in diarrhoea in children under 5.
For families who previously had to purchase their firewood, there is a significant immediate financial saving as wood fuel use is reduced by 71%. Half the population of Rwanda earns just $1.90 per day and biomass cooking fuels are the fourth largest expense for a Rwandan family, so a reduction of 71% becomes a very significant household saving. Savings are used for buying stock to run from- home community stores, investing in livestock and improved crop cultivation, education and buying a wider variety of foods which improves household nutrition.
Recent independent research conducted by 60 Decibels shows Live Well to be outperforming sector benchmarks across all key measures from beneficiary satisfaction to quality of life and climate resilience.
Beyond the direct stove benefits, DelAgua trains and employs >7,000 rural community-based workers, providing long term rural jobs where such opportunities are scarce and training in valuable skills including smartphone usage, data capture and project management.
The Innovation
The Live Well programme was designed to focus exclusively on rural communities dependent on wood fuelled 3 stone fires. These communities subsist well below the poverty line, on $1.50 / day or less, so they have been left behind in the adoption of energy efficient cooking as the cost of a stove is unaffordable. Through carbon financing DelAgua provides the Live Well stove and education programme free of charge.
The stove is manufactured by BURN in Kenya and increases thermal efficiency resulting in quicker cooking speeds and requires 71% less wood than a traditional fire. The stove specification takes full account of the realities of cooking in rural Africa so it is tough, durable, portable and can withstand the rigours of cooking outdoors daily.
DelAgua pioneered the use of technology to match stoves with recipient households. Stoves are stamped at manufacture with a unique, indelible QR code. At distribution this is scanned using the DelAgua smartphone app and matched with the recipient’s identity and household details. This provides the geo location of each stove which is checked at the initial in-home education and training visit. Simply providing a stove is not enough and this extensive education is a vital part of Live Well: it is how to achieve lasting behaviour change and why we deliver high levels of stove usage.
Each household is visited twice a year by professionally trained and supervised local teams. During household visits, cooking habits and stove usage is assessed, with the results uploaded via the app. This means we hold accurate, current data on each of our 1.6 million+ stoves. Purchasers of Live Well carbon credits have an exceptional level of confidence in their integrity, impact and authenticity and this in turn assures future funding to expand into new markets and bring clean cooking to more rural populations.
Implemented in
Rwanda, The Gambia and Sierra Leone
Get in touch
Kate Bruges, Communications Director
About DelAgua
DelAgua is a social enterprise dedicated to transforming lives and nature through enterprise. Using enterprise and innovation, DelAgua delivers tangible health and environmental benefits that help create conditions for sustainable economic growth and empower communities to thrive. Three principles guide how we work: Impact; Integrity; Expertise
