UCODEA engages the urban poor in innovative projects, designed to promote their socio-economic development.
The projects have an environmental health dimension, targeting a reduction in the incidence of preventable diseases.
The goal is to provide a channel for essential services to reach the least privileged, improving their standard of living.
UCODEA started as a community-based organization operating in Makindye Division – Kampala District.
The organization is now registered as a company limited by guarantee and has prospects of opening up branches countrywide. It works closely with a sister business company, Urban Community Development Agencies Limited.
Kawere Mohammad, the director of UCODEA, is a second generation stove builder. In 2000, he created an organization structured as for-profit subsidiary. UCODEA now manufactures and sells improved charcoal stoves in Makindye and institutional stoves throughout the country. UCODEA has been eager to develop and disseminate an improved wood stove for the local market where, in recent years, rising fuel costs have taken an increasing chunk of limited family incomes.
As the largest community-based organization in Makindye division, UCODEA currently provides services, including garbage collection, to 20,000 households. It also host a women’s network that is engaged in producing retained-heat cookers and other income-generating activities.
UCODEA is pioneering the dissemination of improved stove technology in Uganda.
These stoves bring a range of benefits:
- Financial: more efficient use of fuel, saving money for the consumers who struggle with rising fuel costs.
- Health: The stoves have a technology proven to reduce emissions of harmful particulate matter that can cause respiratory illnesses.
- Environmental: switching from less efficient stoves reduces the increasing pressure on non-renewable biomass (trees used for fuel).
- Climate Change: less fuel used = fewer carbon emissions, which means fewer greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.
The reduced emissions generated by selling these stoves qualifies UCODEA for carbon financing. Funds are generated globally from organizations offsetting the carbon footprint of activities such as long-haul flights.
These additional revenues create an opportunity to scale the business, delivering more carbon-efficient stoves to the marketplace.
