MIGA’s investment guarantee to clean-cooking climate tech firm safeguards carbon credit initiative in Rwanda and Kenya
Have you heard of sustainable bio-cooking solutions being developed across Africa? Are you aware of the uncertainty faced by carbon credit markets despite the Paris Agreement? In our first Content Corner, come find out about KOKO Networks’ projects and how MIGA’s investment guarantee ensures their protection and support of article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Last week the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) guaranteed an investment of 179.6 million USD to climate tech firm KOKO Networks. KOKO Networks operates in Rwanda and Kenya and aims to supply more sustainable and clean cooking solutions to low-income households by phasing out the traditional use of charcoal and wood and replacing it with bioethanol cookstoves and fuel.
Past attempts to introduce clean-cooking solutions in Africa is a great case study in the importance of listening to communities and adapting to their needs in international aid or development initiatives. I first encountered this idea during a humanitarian engineering class, which showcased the importance of tailoring these technological solves to the knowledge and needs of local communities to ensure their use. Initiatives like the Twig-Light project in Ghana in 2008 for instance failed due to its lack of forethought in adapting to family sizes, cooking style and the accessibility of fuel sources.
KOKO Networks’ projects do learn from past design and implementation mistakes. Their model does not only supply the cookstoves – it also implements 3,000 ATMS that supply sustainable bioethanol cooking fuel at very strategic locations like corner shops in low-income neighbourhoods. The model also relies on carbon credits from the switching to sustainable fuel to fund the cookstoves and fuel for these low-income families.
Why is this guarantee by MIGA particularly important? Beyond the solves put forward by KOKO Networks to actually adapt the clean cooking solutions to the local population’s needs, its efforts directly involve the use of carbon-credit financing, a domain that can suffer from the regulatory uncertainties of carbon markets internationally. MIGA’s guarantee protects these credits even in the case in which the host governments would fail to uphold the Paris Agreement, and their contract spans fifteen years and covers “risks of expropriation, war and civil disturbance, transfer restriction, and breach of contract” (Impact Investor).
What are your thoughts? Had you heard about the introduction of clean-cooking solutions before? Did you know about how MIGA, which is under the World Bank Group, and its contributions to upholding the Paris Agreement even as a safeguard against potential state actions?
To learn more about these topics:
About MIGA’s pledge
About the introduction of clean cooking solutions in African countries
KOKO Networks’ website
Article about the failures of humanitarian engineering to take into local needs
“Engineering and humanitarian intervention: learning from failure” by Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, M. Ayaz Naseem and Dania Mohamad in the Journal of International Humanitarian action
About article 6 of the Paris Agreement and the carbon credit system