Ahmedabad, India
#00187
Case study of
#00007 Convert dark roofs and pavement to reflective, high-albedo surfaces
Implementer
Mahila Housing Trust, delivering through women's Community Action Groups; residents paint their own roofs
Location
Description
Since roughly the mid-2010s, the Mahila Housing Trust has run a women-led cool roofs program in which residents of informal settlements paint their own roofs with solar-reflective paint. Delivery runs through women's Community Action Groups. The approach has covered more than 20,000 slum homes across Ahmedabad and Jodhpur, with integration into Jodhpur's heat action plan. Cost is a few thousand rupees per roof. The rigorous benchmark for effect size is a Wellcome-funded RCT companion trial in Burkina Faso, which measured 1.2–1.7 °C indoor temperature reduction and lowered heart rates; an Ahmedabad RCT (~400 households, roofs painted January 2025) has results pending.
Metrics
2Funding
Lessons learned
- Resident-applied reflective paint delivered through trusted women's groups scales where contractor-led retrofit programs stall — it reaches informal settlement homes no municipal retrofit program touches.
- Plan replication budgets and impact claims around the RCT-benchmark effect (1.2–1.7 °C indoor reduction), not the promoter claim (5–6 °C); the honest number still justifies the cost.
- Integrating a household-level technology into the city heat action plan converts a product rollout into durable policy, as demonstrated by Jodhpur's inclusion of this intervention in its heat action plan.
Documented Jul 24, 2026