Governance Reforms and Rural Electriﬁcation in Kenya
Milton Alwanga, PhD candidate, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology-Nairobi, Kenya
Introduction

Objectives

Regression Results

The study sought to investigate the effect of governance reforms
Rural electriﬁca on in Kenya dates back in 1973. However, inspite of the government inves ng in electricity sub-sector on rural electricity access in Kenya.
Speciﬁcally,
thestudyin
vesti
gates
how
stakeholderparticipation,
heavily in reforming the energy sector, governance issues have been iden ﬁed as some of thefactors holding back rural electriﬁca on. These includes accountability, ci zen par cipa on and accountability and decentralisation affects access on electricity inruralKenya,
andprovide
possi
ble
polic
y
recommendati
ons
based
decentraliza on of service provision ins tu ons (Lee et al., 2016).
on the ﬁndings.

Through Sessional paper No.1 of 1986, the government undertook to change the law to facilitate
greater ci zen par cipa on in decision making, decentraliza on of service provision and created Methodology
ins tu ons to guaranteegreatertransparency andaccountabilityin the energysector. This wasaimed at
•The
study
wasconductedinKakamega,
Uasin
Gishu
and
ensuringeﬃcient, reliable, aﬀordable, andaccessible electricityin the ruralareas.

Nyandaruacountiesbetween June andAugust,2019.

.

o te a ai te u a ya ol od a o u ifil ag is u iu el ai u so in ar tib ur ir as a ib ur id ko ar a ir ur a at re iht ai a u a rij tog m s w b s oi a g hc b i a i m ti a pi m k e e a e o a g o u n r i ur ey u y e vi i o n hs gi a kni m o u k si B s ij e ir m K y K u K w k a a u d s gi b n ri k a a m a b ai v N z ak i hi or o g B a m r a I a m e ai n si K i L h k n r M M ar a a N N a d N S a R N r G W PaBn r Ea Kaa c a a a m u N N y n m T a ak s u V tirKL aM M oa a n a n T ni s
B u a G mo k K K iaNM
M
Ky S ti a r a s e
B M H aKMM
Na T ah rT a Wo
T T UyeglE
County

Beta

Sig.

-.143

.206

.346

.003

.249

.026

-0.4630.000

Citizen Participation

Accountability

Decentralization

Constant

463.334
Log likelihood

Cox & Snell R Square.043

Nagelkerke R Square.059

Hosmer-Lemeshow Test (Chi -square)

7.067

.529

• Data was collected from randomly selected 360 householdswith aid of household questionnaires and key informant
Conclusions
interviews with experts from electricity institutions, NGO’s and• Governance reforms (accountability andconsumerorganizations.
decentralization)have a positive and statistically• Logistic regression modelwasadopted.
signiﬁcanteffect on ruralelectriﬁcation.
• The study modelled stakeholder participation, accountability and• Stakeholder participation is not statisticallydecentralisation.
signiﬁcant.

Electriﬁcations rates (County)
807060s50
et 40
ar30
20
100

Access to electricity.
Logo for secondary institution
if appropriateFindings

Nairobi has the highest rate (72.4%), followed by Mombasa (59%) and then
Kiambu at 53% while coun es with the lowest electriﬁca on rates are Kajiado(0.5%), West Pokot (2%) and Turkana at 2.4%. Kakamega, Uasin Gishu andConnected to National Grid
Nyandarua have electriﬁca on rates of 35.8%, 27.9%, 36.1% respectively.
Na onally,reformsin theelectricitysub-sectorhaveseengradualimprovementin
rural electriﬁca on rates. For instances, the rates have increased from 1.7% in
39.40%
1993,to 2.9%in 2001, and laterto 48.39%in 2018 (KNBS,2019). However,this is60.60%s l below that na onal average of 75% and urban electriﬁca on rate of 77.6%.
Faster growth of urban areas, massive industrializa on, and rela vely highConnected
Notconnected
incomes of the residents, can partly explains high electriﬁca on rates in urban
areas. Nevertheless, there is limited empirical evidence on the eﬀect ofgovernancereformsonruralaccesstoelectricity.
th
Poster Presented Energy Week Conference, Kyushu University-Fukuoka, Japan, 22-29 Jan, 2021

Policy implications• Kenyan government to enhance decentralization andaccountability reforms in the electricity sub-sector..
• There is need to encourage stakeholder
participation(speciﬁcally, beneﬁciaries, civil society) inthe sector.

Acknowledgment• Greatly indebted to the contribution of mysupervisors: Dr. F.O. Mwaura, and Prof.
E.Mukulu – JKUAT,, and to KyushuUniversity forthis opportunity.