Rural infrastructure: Rural housing, Electrification, Roads
27/03/2021Rural housing
Rural electrification
Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Rural communities are suffering from colossal market failures as the national grids fall short of their demand for electricity. As of 2017, over 1 billion people worldwide lack household electric power; 14% of the global population. Electrification typically begins in cities and towns and gradually extends to rural areas; however, this process often runs into obstacles in developing nations. Expanding the national grid is expensive and countries consistently lack the capital to grow their current infrastructure. Additionally, amortizing capital costs to reduce the unit cost of each hook-up is harder to do in lightly populated areas (yielding higher per capita share of the expense). If countries are able to overcome these obstacles and reach nationwide electrification, rural communities will be able to reap considerable amounts of economic and social development.
Productivity and efficiency
In addition to improved education, rural electrification also allows for greater efficiency and productivity. Businesses will be able to keep their doors open for longer and generate additional revenues. Farmers will have access to streamlined modern techniques such as irrigation, crop processing, and food preservation. In 2014, rural communities in India gained more than US$21 million from increased economic activity driven by recent additions of electricity.
Job creation
When expanding the electrical grid, there is a demand for thousands of jobs ranging from business development to construction. Projects to spread electricity create a wealth of job opportunities and help to alleviate poverty. For example, India set a target of 175GW of clean energy to be installed by 2022 to increase electrification throughout the country. An estimated 300,000 jobs will need to be created in order to reach these lofty goals.