Rural electrification : linkages and justifications

RE projects can, however, promote integrated rural development significantly by encouraging productive and municipal, as well as traditional household, electricity usages. In this paper, a justification for increased attention to RE projects is made based on these additional usages and issues are identified for further exploration. The author notes that RE planners generally tend to seek replication of the successful Philippine RE project, which strongly favored household consumption. Various issues are examined for their impact on the rural poor. These include the choice of rate mechanisms (meter or flat); lowered rates for high-volume users; beneficiaries and cost-effectiveness of RE projects; preference of the consumer for wood in cooking; economic drawbacks to the use of electricity; and the superiority of independent over central station generation. The author concludes that an RE project is not justified on the basis of household consumption alone; most often the poorest members of the community cannot take advantage of the benefits offered by household electricity. They can benefit much more significantly from the increase in employment which accompanies RE use by producers and from the increase in public services resulting from RE's municipal use. A.I.D. should investigate means of encouraging employment generation in RE projects, e.g., by providing credit and technical assistance to small industries. A.I.D. should also identify public services which are electricity-dependent, such as clinics and schools, and link provision of RE projects with extension of these services. The author also recommends the creation of a central A.I.D. office to promote local (rather than international) suppliers for the equipment and labor demands of infrastructure projects and favors an AID-supported central fund to promote local cooperatives and autogeneration projects. A 94-item bibliography (1966-78) is attached.