Sustainable Consumption and Partial Substitution of Wood Energy - DRCongo

Expected Impacts

Like all programmes financed by CAFI through the DRC's National REDD+ Fund, the Programme on Sustainable Consumption and Substitution for Wood Energy helps to achieve a dual impact:

• A stabilisation of forest cover and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 150,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, starting in 2024, thanks to a reduced usage of wood to produce cooking energy;
• Improvement of living conditions: increased income, including through 300 to 400 jobs created in the LPG distribution network, and health benefits for nearly one million people affected by wood-energy cooking activities.

Results as of 31 December  2023

• Launched in July 2021, the National Energy Policy benefited from close collaboration with key ministries (Including Environment & Sustainable Development, Hydrocarbons, Planning), civil society at the provincial level (GTCR-R, CORAP), and the private sector (FEC). This process helped define a common vision, objectives and 4 strategic axes (Electricity, Hydrocarbons, Biomass and Renewable Energies) of the Policy. The document was approved on a technical level and is waiting for formal adoption by the Ministerial Council.  
• The implementation and use of improved and LPG stoves enabled 110,452 tonnes of avoided CO2eq emissions.
• Overall, the project's support to businesses has enabled, directly or indirectly, the sale and distribution of improved stoves to 104,204 households (Kinshasa: 49,558 Lubumbashi: 10,250 Bukavu: 3,395 Goma: 41,001),  with 26,137 households adopting LPG stoves as a cooking source in the project's target areas.
• In addition, the project's development of an economically viable local market for the production and marketing of clear cooking energy (improved stoves and LPG) has led to the creation of 1,055 direct jobs, employing 331 women and 429 young people.
• These activities were carried out thanks to the Incubation Challenge Fund for Clean Cooking, which resulted in:
  • 122 proposals submitted by companies producing clean cookstoves
  • 12 projects approved and funded for a total investment volume of $1,201,400 approved by the Challenge Fund in the form of grants
  • The mobilization of co-financing for two of these projects, in the form of loans, amounting to $650,000 from the Least Developed Countries Investment Platform (LDCIP).
  • The project continues to provide assistance to companies wishing to increase capital to expand their production and distribution capacity through LDCIP. It supports COETE GAZ and DAP Energy with loans of $150,000 and $200,000, respectively.
• Studies on the production, consumption and energy efficiency of wood energy were carried out for Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Bukavu. Most notably, they confirmed the predominance of charcoal (96.7%) for energy use in DRC and a low level of usage of LPG in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Goma and Bukavu (on average 1%) but slightly more in Goma (7%). The wood-energy sector (charcoal and firewood) generates a total added value of $300 million in Kinshasa, $50.6 million in Lubumbashi, $26.5 million in Goma and $16.5 million in Bukavu. 

Progress of this programme have also been described in the 2021 semestrial publication of the DRC National REDD+ Fund – read it here and here (in French).

Areas of intervention

• Kinshasa and Kivu (Goma and Bukavu) and Katanga (Lubumbashi) provinces, in urban areas where fuel consumers are concentrated.
• Kisangani is targeted in the context of micro-hydroelectricity and in synergy with the PIREDD Oriental programme.
• These national clean cooking hubs will serve as models of success for expanding coverage to the rest of the country as soon as conditions are met, particularly in the provinces covered by multisectoral programmes. 

Synergies

This programme contributes to the milestones of the Letter of Intent signed in 2016 between the DRC and CAFI, specifically: 

• Milestone 2018 (1) Carry out feasibility studies on alternative energies to wood energy;
• Milestone 2018 (2) Completion of baseline studies in areas targeted by integrated programmes on production, consumption and energy efficiency in the use of wood-energy resources;
• Milestone 2020 (1) Revise energy policy to include wood-energy component;
• Milestone 2020 (2) Dissemination and use of improved stoves in 10 percent of Kinshasa households).

Two independent verifications of these milestones were undertaken (please read the report available here).