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Microplanning to deliver stoves in rural Sierra Leone
Microplanning to deliver stoves in Rural Sierra Leone
With over 12 years’ expertise in delivering large scale carbon funded cookstove projects, DelAgua has developed a highly efficient project implementation system that allows our Livɛ Fyn programme to reach even the most remote villages in Sierra Leone, maximising impact, prioritising integrity and optimizing staff and transport resources . This requires meticulous planning and a good understanding of local procedures, customs and cultural context.
Since the inception of Livɛ Fyn in 2023, our team, led by local Country Director Ibrahim Marrah, has built trusted partnerships with leaders at national and village levels, a key pillar of the programme’s success.
The team executes an 8-step pre-distribution & distribution planning process to ensure a methodical approach to the complexities of Livɛ Fyn project delivery:
1. District Selection
We work with relevant Ministries to determine districts eligible for distribution. The districts are selected by the Ministry to ensure regional balance and directly target households most in need of improved cookstoves.
This process is included in our MoU with the Government of Sierra Leone and helps us to align with the Government’s national strategy.
2. Chiefdom Engagement
In Sierra Leone’s administrative structure, each district is organized into Chiefdoms, which are traditional tribal delineations that are headed by a hereditary Paramount Chief (PC).
To ensure community cohesion and buy- in for the project, DelAgua engages the Paramount Chiefs to seek their support for the Live Well programme and signs individual Collaboration Agreements with all Chiefdoms.
3. Youth Volunteer Recruitment and Training
DelAgua works with the Ministry of Youth and Chiefdoms to recruit Youth Volunteers (YVs) in every district of operation. Because Sierra Leone is culturally diverse with 23 languages spoken across the country, YVs are recruited at Chiefdom level to ensure that they speak the language in that area and understand the cultural norms of that region.
After recruitment, all Youth Volunteers undergo 3-day training workshops on the project, its benefits, carbon credits and project specific training.
YVs are paid the equivalent of $5 a day in local currency to undertake this work and training. The average daily income in Sierra Leone is $1.90 so this is valuable employment, particularly in rural areas where such jobs are scarce and poverty levels are more than twice those of urban areas. Because the stoves have a 10-year life for carbon-issuance purposes, DelAgua is also providing jobs over the long-term. As of June 2026, DelAgua has recruited and trained 2,763 YVs in Sierra Leone.
4. Beneficiary Name Collection
Due to limited accurate and precise data from the Government on rural household numbers and details, YVs go door-to-door in every village and register the names of all eligible beneficiary households. Because polygyny is customary and prevalent in rural Sierra Leone, our Livɛ Fyn programme provides a cookstove for every wife, instead of every household as it is in Rwanda. So, during this phase, YVs register every wife in a household as an individual beneficiary. This allows households to maintain their usual cooking routines and habits even after receiving a DelAgua stove.
The beneficiary name collection process is complicated and highly manual; all names are typed into the DelAgua database to establish the exact number of households and beneficiaries (wives) per village. Each registered beneficiary receives a Beneficiary Slip Number which they present at the distribution site to receive their stove. On average, one YV collects 40 – 50 beneficiary names per day, given that the villages are sparsely located.
5. Microplanning
Based on the beneficiary data collected and uploaded to the DelAgua system, the teams then begin planning distribution logistics; this includes scouting stove storage and distribution site locations.
Stove storage locations: The stoves arrive in the villages 1 -2 days before distributions, therefore this location must be safe and have the capacity to store the allocated number of stoves. This is usually the chiefdom offices or a mosque.
Distribution Sites: The team scouts for a distribution site that is suitable to host hundreds of people during distributions and is centrally located so that beneficiaries don’t have to walk long distances.
Teams are now allocated to their respective Chiefdoms and distribution sites. On average, each distribution site has 20 – 30 YVs per Chiefdom, depending on the population in that village, along with a Program Coordinator and Distribution Coordinator supervising several distribution sites.
6. Dispatching Stoves to Distribution Locations
Stoves are then dispatched from the warehouse in Sierra Leone to the different districts and villages where the teams will have arrived to conduct final preparations ahead of distributions. The stoves are transported in 40-foot trucks, that carry 800 – 1,000 stoves per truck.
Due to poor road infrastructure in rural Sierra Leone, transporting stoves to the final distribution sites is a challenge, forcing the teams to face delays in travel times, especially during rainy seasons.
To address this issue, the 40-foot trucks transport the stoves as far as the districts where the stoves are then moved onto smaller trucks that are able to drive on the dirt roads. These smaller trucks drive up to the village distribution locations.
7. Distributions
In Sierra Leone, DelAgua has pioneered ‘mobile distributions’ where stoves are loaded onto small trucks and are driven to village communities that are several kilometers from the central distribution location. The mobile distribution trucks are driven from one village community to another to bring the stoves closer to beneficiaries and ensure that they are not deterred by walking long distances.
During peak distribution seasons, over 3,500 stoves are distributed per day across several distribution sites.
Beneficiaries present their unique beneficiary slip number, and sign, or, as there are very high levels of illiteracy, apply a thumb print, to receive their stove. This beneficiary data is matched with the unique stove QR code so every stove can be accurately tracked.
At the end of each distribution day, the YVs, Distribution Coordinators and Assistant Distribution Coordinators find a central location with stable internet connection to upload all the day’s data to the DelAgua system. This step is crucial because many villages do not have internet connections.
8. Household Visits
DelAgua conducts one on one Household Visits (HHVs) a few weeks after beneficiaries receive their stove. A team dedicated to HHVs has been hired and trained to conduct these home educational sessions.
After distributions have been completed in a Chiefdom, the HHV coordinators and YVs in those villages then commence the visits. HHVs are done soon after distributions in order to teach the beneficiaries how to correctly use the new cooking device they have received. After the initial visit, HHVs are then conducted throughout the life of the stove to monitor stove usage.
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