WINTER 2016
Random Access
By Jessica Pothering
Kenya ’ s vast rural landscape tells a misleading story about energy access across the country . Power transmission towers can be spotted in even the most remote areas and found within one kilometer of 70 percent of Kenyan households . Yet only five percent of rural residents — who constitute the majority of Kenya ’ s 44 million people — have electricity . This is likely because the cost of a household power connection is prohibitively high for most rural families : about US $ 400 per home . As a result , most village homes go dark once the sun goes down .
Alleviation of so-called “ energy poverty ” is a key focus in the field of international development . But while it is generally accepted that access to power yields positive social and economic results , concrete evidence is sparse .
“ We actually know very little about the impacts of energy access , and whether there are in fact large welfare gains from these versus other types of community investments ,” says Ken Lee , a graduate researcher with the University of California , Berkeley ’ s Center for Effective Global Action ( CEGA ).
Few studies have sought to examine the relationship between infrastructure development and social and economic wellbeing . This is surprising , given the enormous public and private investment in infrastructure . For example , in 2014 , the World Bank spent $ 24.2 billion on infrastructure , which typically accounts for 30 to 40 percent of its total commitments .
For the last three years , a team of researchers from Berkeley ’ s Development Impact Lab have been working to shed light on that question . The Lab , which is funded by USAID , develops multidisciplinary projects to improve development impact . Its team in Kenya , which includes Lee , has partnered with a Kenyan government agency on a large randomized study to determine the costs and benefits of expanding energy services to remote areas .
“ We hope to show , with rigorous impact evaluation , whether there are quantifiable positive effects of connecting people to the electricity grid ,” explains Matt
The Rural Electric Power Project ( REPP ) Team with their collaborators , Innovations for Poverty Action Kenya , during a recent field visit . ( Photo Credit : Innovations for Poverty Action )
Podolsky , an engineer who serves as a technical expert on the project from Berkeley ’ s Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions ( TIER ) group . “ It ’ s not necessarily a unique idea , but having this kind of evidence would be useful for influencing public investments .”
It may not be a new idea , but it is a relatively untested one : Berkeley ’ s so-called “ Rural Electric Power Project ” in Kenya is one of a very small number of randomized studies on infrastructure development .
The Research Challenge Randomized controlled trials — commonly called RCTs — set the gold standard for empirical analysis because of their rigor and objectivity . But while they have become the norm in fields like drug and medical device testing , experts acknowledge that it is difficult to execute RCTs for infrastructure because of the difficulty identifying counterfactuals . In the scope of electricity projects , this means trying to estimate how households with electricity would have fared if they did not have electricity .
“ One way to deal with this counterfactual is to make electricity available in a randomized fashion and then observe how households similar in all characteristics except electricity compare with one another ,” notes a 2009 World Bank study on rural electrification in Bangladesh . This is not how grid expansion projects are typically planned , however . “ In order to be financially viable , electricity [ projects ] generally follow a plan to reach more developed and densely populated communities before more remote areas ,” the report explains . This highlights why in Kenya , for example , urban electrification ( 65 percent ) far outpaces rural electrification ( 5 percent ), even when a larger share of the population lives in rural areas .
Other experts note that there are also ethical considerations to randomly assigning infrastructure access to members within the same community . The approach the REPP team is testing effectively allows for electricity connectivity to be randomized , while avoiding potential allegations of unfairness or favoritism . This is because the study merely encourages access by offering some households a discount for a power line connection .
The REPP team selected 150 villages in western Kenya that are within a mile ( 1.6 km ) of a power transformer . In half of those villages , about 1,100 households were offered the discount ; the other villages were not . Hundreds of the “ treatment group ” households responded
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