Village co-operative works for electrification

From the top of a hill in the hamlet of Tanghin Dassouri, the lights of the capital Ouagadougou can be seen only 25 km away, but the government, short of funds, is unable to extend electricity to its doors and has urged villagers to help. Wendemi Yanogo, a former school teacher, was one of the first people in the village of 2,600 people to join the state-sponsored cooperative, of which she is also a shareholder, that will organise and part fund the electrification of Tanghin Dassouri. Yanogo sells milk. She has already calculated how much more money she could earn once the electricity arrives. “With electricity I will increase my production by keeping fresh milk and earn even more by transforming it directly into yoghurt at home,” Yanogo says, anticipating that she will be able to more than double her earnings from milk by being able to sterilise it herself. The cooperatives essentially act like any other client of the electricity company, buying power and then selling on to the villagers. While 60 percent of the start up funds is paid for subsidies and donor support, the villagers with the help of interest-free loans will fund the remaining 40 percent. The government hopes that under this new programme, 40 percent of the Burkina Faso will have electricity by 2015 compared to the current figure of 12 percent. In the fifty years of existence, the National Electricity Company, Sonabel, has managed to extend the national network to only 51 towns and cities out of 400 nationwide. The cooperative idea was developed after it became apparent that the government did not have the funds to provide every town and hamlet with electricity. “It’s high time we made the populations accountable for some aspects of their development - the state has not money to do all that is needed at this point,” Emmanuel Nonyarma, the government’s director general for energy, said. The villagers main hope is that the arrival of electricity will enable economic development. “Electricity is a powerful tool for the development and for poverty reduction, that is why we immediately saw the importance of the electrification project,” explained El Hadj Boureima Sawadogo, the cooperative chairman. At the moment, Yanogo sells her fresh, untreated milk to the Ouagadougou dairy for 0.51 cents (equivalent to 275 CFA francs) per litre, whereas sterilised milk sells for between 0.9 cents to $1.1 dollar per litre. “We are glad to be preparing to receive electricity because everywhere it has boosted development,” said Yanogo. In total, she has personally contributed $18 to the cooperative, and in return for her contributions and support, hers will be one of the first 700 households to be electrified. Support for the cooperative has been strong - initial targets for the collection of $1,847 were surpassed by more than half within three days of it being set up and as the first homes are due to plug into the national grid, the cooperative boasts $7,400 in capital. With proven support from the villagers themselves, the government agreed to lend the cooperative 40 percent of the total infrastructure bill, or $290,000, demanded by the developers before work could begin. “The infrastructure needed is so expensive that the government cannot single-handedly continue to equip all areas with electricity,” said Nonyarma, from the energy department. “If we were to continue alone we would go bankrupt, or we’ll be forced to suspend power to houses here and there,” he added. Currently, between 80 and 85 percent of electricity consumption is concentrated in Ouagadougou and the second city Bobo Dioulasso. Profits made in these two cities are used to offset the high costs of electricity provision in the low consumption rural areas. But when the bill for extending the network can reach as much as $924 per person, the government decided that offsetting the costs of a national electrification project could not be paid for with profits from the two cities alone. High oil prices have further inflated the cost of electricity in Burkina Faso, which widely uses thermal power units. In a bid to keep costs down, cooperatives are being encouraged to use electricity in off-peak, non-business hours. “From the roadside, we see people riding here on bicycles to deliver ice and iced drinks. Tomorrow, we’ll make all this here including the bread we are buying in everyday from Ouagadougou,” Sawadogo said. “But in future, some enterprises will come and settle here, keeping our money here rather than us always having to buy things in from elsewhere where they already have electricity,” he said.