PhD defence: Arouna Diallo

Analyse économique de la pauvreté énergétique : Le cas de la Côte d’Ivoire

Jury

Pascale Combes-Motel, Professor, Université Clermont Auvergne
Sonia Schwartz, Professor, Université Clermont Auvergne
Alban Alphonse Ahoure, Associate Professor, Université Felix Houphouët Boigny
Valérie Berenger, Professor, Université de Toulon
Dorothée Charlier, Associate Professor, Université de Savoie
Zié Ballo, Professor, Université Felix Houphouët Boigny

Abstract

The provision of energy services is recognized as an essential foundation for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of energy-poor people: more than 600 million people have no access to electricity and more than 905 million people continue to rely on biomass for cooking particularly in rural areas (IEA, 2019). This thesis contributes to the literature by analyzing the link between energy poverty and development. It studies the case of Côte d'Ivoire, which has one of the highest rates of access to electricity in West Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The first chapter provides an overview of the energy sector situation in Côte d'Ivoire. The literature review shows that despite the deployment of various past and current energy programs in the country, much effort remains to be done to achieve the objective of providing energy in quantity and quality to all.

The second chapter constructs a multidimensional energy poverty index adapted to the economic and social conditions of Côte d'Ivoire to measure the extent and magnitude of this phenomenon in the country. The quantitative analysis shows that energy poverty affects nearly 66% of the population in Côte d'Ivoire with strong disparities between the rural (91% of the rural population) and urban areas (40% of the population residing in cities). The chapter then highlights the determinants of energy poverty. The econometric results indicate that the socio-economic characteristics of the head of household, the place of residence, women’s bargaining power, and household composition are the main determinants of energy poverty in Côte d’Ivoire. This study concludes that a substantial effort by governments and donors is still needed to enable households to have access to clean energy.

Chapter 3 examines the determinants of household cooking fuels. Our results indicate that an older household head, a household head with a partner, and a household that is far from the sub-prefecture negatively affect the choice of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as the main cooking fuel over firewood in Côte d’Ivoire. Conversely, living in an urban area, living in a modern house, a female-headed household, a highly educated household head, higher household wealth, access to electricity, and the ownership of a gas stove have a positive effect on the adoption of LPG as the main cooking fuel. We propose to strengthen support for the use of LPG. To motivate the household to use clean cooking fuels, policymakers could strengthen poverty reduction policies, increase the supply of education, and make LPG available throughout the country.

Chapter 4 looks at the effect of household access to electricity on poverty levels in Côte d'Ivoire. The results indicate that there is a positive and significant effect of access to electricity on per capita consumer spending. We show that having access to electricity increases per capita household consumption expenditure by 5.2 to 23.3 percent. Furthermore, our results also show that the lower the regional rate of access to electricity, the higher the regional poverty rate. The various results of the study call for policies to combat energy poverty such as the promotion of renewable energies, the improvement of an institutional framework favorable to renewable energies, the extension of access to the domestic solar system to off-grid areas, and the implementation of incentives for the use of renewable energies (reduction of customs and fiscal taxes on equipment enabling the production of renewable energies).

Keywords

Energy poverty, Electricity for All program (PEPT), National Program for Rural Electrification (PRONER), Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI), Deprivation, logistic model, Côte d'Ivoire, Cooking fuels, Multinomial logit analysis, access to electricity, poverty, Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, LSMS.

theses.fr/en/s181635