Impact of rural electrification on socio-economic development in Bunyala Sub-County, Kenya By

Abstract

The Government of Kenya established the rural electrification Program in 1973 for purposes of subsidizing electricity supply in the rural areas with a sole aim of improving the social and economic lives of people in rural areas. This study aimed to investigate the impact of rural electrification on socio-economic development in Bunyala Sub-County, Busia county, Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to; to assess the effect of Rural Electrification Program on the income generating activities in Bunyala Sub-County, to evaluate the effect of Rural Electrification Program on health facilities and services in Bunyala Sub-County, to investigate the effect of Rural Electrification Program on Education sector in Bunyala Sub-County and to determine the effect of Rural electrification program on Energy sector in Bunyala Sub-County, Kenya. The study adopted correlational research design with a target population of 100 households connected through the rural electrification program. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from the respondents with Likert type of questions to capture the demographic information and specific objectives of the study. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics of means, standard deviation and percentage was used on raw data. The inferential statistic of linear regression was used. A computer package, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21 for window was used to do analysis. Majority (78%) of the respondents in Bunyala Sub-County reported to engaging in income generating activities like poultry farming, Fish preservation, shopkeeping, posh-milling due to rural electrification program. The study findings indicated that Majority (86%) of the respondents noted that rural electrification has led to development contributions to health sector in Bunyala Sub-County. The findings indicated statistically significant effect of rural electrification on health sector development (p-value 0.000< 0.05) in Bunyala Sub-County. Rural electrification was found to have a positive contribution to a unit change in health sector (β= 0.202). Similarly, the results indicated statistically significant effect of rural electrification on education sector developmental contributions (p-value 0.000< 0.05). The ANOVA results indicated that model 4 had an F-statistic value of 17.004 with the p-value of 0.000 hence the overall model was significant since the p-value 0.000 < 0.05 at 5% level of significance, therefore, the null hypothesis that there is no statistically significant effect of rural electrification on energy consumption was rejected. The explanatory power of the model measured by coefficient of determination adjusted R-square was 0.826 implying that 82.6% of the income generating activities in Bunyala Sub-County are significantly explained by the inception of rural electrification through the REP. The study concluded that all models were statistically significant (p-value 0.000< 0.05) implying significant effect of rural electrification on , health sector, education sector, income generating activities and energy consumption in Bunyala Sub-County. The study findings are vital providing a basis for public policy evaluation and institution of policy changes by the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy and the Kenyan Government and also indicates the local electricity consumption in the villages after the infrastructure set up of the rural electrification project. This provides proper feedback on the planning process for the rural electrification programs in the country.