Rural areas still in the dark

Despite almost two decades of donor-funded reforms in the energy sector, Benin still faces “enormous” challenges providing electricity, particularly in rural areas, according to the government Benin Society for Electrical Energy (SBEE).



Less than 25 percent of the country has electricity, according to SBEE’s deputy director of planning, Célestin Dangbédji. About half of urban areas do not have electricity while in rural zones - home to more than two-thirds of the eight million population - less than two percent of people have electricity, he told IRIN.



“In rural zones, even some areas in cities, there are zones completely deprived of electricity,” said Dangbédji.



Dangbédji estimated that electricity covers only three percent of the country’s energy needs. “It is an extremely weak sector. We cannot say the country has electrification.”



SBEE currently generates 50 megawatts per year, less than half of what it would take to power the country, he said.



Over the past 18 years, 130 million donor dollars have gone toward energy sector reforms in Benin, according to a listing of World Bank-assisted energy investments.

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Dependence



The World Bank helped launch a US$95-million multi-donor energy reform project in 2004 to alleviate Benin’s energy problems. Goals included privatising the state electricity company, improving in-country transmission, and linking the country to electricity networks in neighbouring countries, according to project documents. 



The project financed a connection between Benin and  Nigeria’s electrical grid. But using Nigeria’s energy puts Benin at the “mercy” of neighbours, said Dangbédji.



“We have a terrible dependence and get only [energy] that people give us,” said SBEE’s planning official. “When Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana - our suppliers - run low [on electrical energy], our situation worsens.”



The World Bank has called neighbouring Nigeria’s unreliable electricity coverage the country’s biggest “infrastructure bottleneck”, saying it has increased the cost of doing business there by 10 percent. Some 85 percent of businesses in Nigeria use generators.



The World Bank announced on 7 February a $30-million grant to Benin, some of which will go to energy improvements. Plans were underway as of late 2008 for SBEE to become partially-privatised, according to the trade group Council of Private Investors in Benin.



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