Keeping the lights on in rural Uganda

10 hours ago Women from the village of Okabi taking part in Stephi's research exercise. Credit: Stephanie Hirmer

Stephanie Hirmer, a PhD student from the Department of Engineering's Centre for Sustainable Development, is investigating the value-perception of the users of rural electrification projects in Uganda.

As part of her investigations, Stephanie travelled to Moyo in northern Uganda to ask which possessions the villagers most value and why. The results will be used to help reduce the failure rate of projects that bring electricity to rural communities there. In this article she talks about her experiences there:

"If I have a flush toilet in my house I think I can be a king of all kings because I can't go out on those squatting latrines also it can protect my wife from going outside alone as recently my wife was almost raped by a thug when she escorted my son to the latrine at around 10:30pm in the night."

This is Paul. His declaration of the possession he would most value is met with laughter from his fellow villagers, but it highlights a very real concern the safety of his family.

It's also a valuable research finding for me. Too often, projects that bring electricity to villages like Paul's fail because of lack of uptake and maintenance by the rural communities. But if, for instance, the benefits of electrification could be understood in terms of the safety value of night-time lighting, this could improve the sense of community responsibility towards sustaining the technology after its implementers have gone home.

Another villager, Michael, explains that he places most value in owning a corrugated iron sheet instead of grassthatched roofing because this would reduce the risk of indoor fires. Here too, the value of electricity can be highlighted it would avoid the need to cook on an open fire.

Understanding the locals' real needs and desires can be a key element in overcoming the lack of technology uptake. Finding out what these are is the aim of my PhD research, working with Dr Heather Cruickshank at the Centre for Sustainable Development. While the technology itself has been extensively studied, social attributes in project design have received little attention.

I have travelled here by a 'boda boda' motorbike and then night bus, sharing my seat on the 12-hour journey on unpaved roads to the West Nile Region of Uganda with two too many people, a goat lying beneath me, and enough chickens not to be able to ignore the smell. Only once I am on the bus do I realise that my local research assistant has accidentally booked us on the budget bus (only US$2 cheaper than the luxury coach).

To provide better infrastructure services to rural communities, it is fundamentally important to relate to the beneficiaries' needs and aspirations, and I need to travel to the areas to learn this at first hand. Infrastructure failure after the projects are handed over to the communities is common across the basic utility provisions such as water and electrification, and I am keen to discover if there is a way of improving project longevity by 'selling' a service that is valued.

View post:
Keeping the lights on in rural Uganda