Less than 20% of the 35 million Bangladeshi households have access to clean cooking. The Bondhu Chula, which loosely translates as the ‘friendly stove’ in Bengali is solving this problem. Traditionally, cooking is done over an open firepit, releasing smoke and particulate pollutants. These pollutants contribute to nearly 50,000 premature deaths a year and cause millions in the country to suffer from lung, eye, or skin infections.

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The Bangladesh Bondhu Foundation is changing this through its Bondhu Chula, which is designed to ensure more efficient and cleaner home cooking. This project works with micro-entrepreneurs who receive training in stove production, sales and marketing and after-sales service.

This Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) project in eastern Cambodia mitigates drivers of deforestation such as in-migration and small-scale agriculture, and to enhance local livelihoods.

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The project is working with 2,500 households (~12,500 people) within the 20 participating villages by the project area which is nearly 300,000 hectares of forest.

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Key project activities include patrols, clarifying and securing indigenous community tenure, and law enforcement. The project is being implemented with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the National Forestry Administration that work together on the project.

Located across the country, this portfolios of projects is supporting India’s green growth agenda by enhancing renewable energy capacity to meet growing energy demands.

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The country’s rapid population growth has meant increasing pressure on electricity generating capacity, of which only 13% is currently supplied by renewable energy. The project displaces electricity which would have otherwise been drawn primarily from fossil fuel power stations, also improving local air quality while avoiding solid waste generation associated with coal-fired power plants. Carbon finance is essential to support India’s green growth agenda and achieve the country’s installed capacity target of 175 GW by 2022.

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In addition to delivering approximately 350,000 tonnes of emissions reductions annually to help take urgent action to combat climate change (SDG 13), the project delivers a number of other sustainable development benefits. These include: