Uganda Gender Responsive Safe Water Project
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In Lango, access to safe water is a major challenge; boreholes to access groundwater often fall into disrepair due to a lack of funding or training for their maintenance. Having no safe water access forces communities to use unsafe sources such as streams to get their water - which has to be boiled to make it safe. To boil the water, communities collect and burn firewood, which places greater pressure on dwindling forests and produces CO2 emissions. It also creates a burden for women and children, who typically spend hours every day collecting firewood and water. Even so, boiling water does not always guarantee that it is safe to drink, so waterborne diseases continue to afflict the community.
The first ever Gold Standard-certified gender responsive credits have been created by the Lango Safe Water Project. ‘Gender Responsive’ projects take a pro-active approach to promoting and implementing gender equality practices in the community where the project is based. This gives purchasers of carbon credits the opportunity to support a project that proactively support gender equality.
Project Impacts and Benefits
This is the first project to be certified under the Gold Standard`s Gender Responsive Framework which means that the project has been rigorously assessed to reduce gender inequality.
Since project implementation in 2019 the project has delivered the following impacts:
40,000 individuals now enjoy clean water access, reducing the incidence of waterborne illness
Nearly 4 hours saved per week for collecting water per household, which is a 19% improvement from the baseline, saving mostly women and young girls time
Reduced school absenteeism due to less exposure to waterborne disease and less time spent collecting water
100% of the surveyed water users spend the time saved on domestic work, as well as income generating activities (99%) and social / leisure activities (94%)
The local Water Resource Committee now has almost equal female to male representation, with 46% female to 54% male
Reported incidents of domestic violence related to water collection have dropped to zero, compared to 35% prior to the project start
