Thesis supervisor
: Sylvy Jaglin
The 1990s and 2000s were marked, in many sub-Saharan African countries, by the adoption of neoliberal policies reputed to be conducive to development goals (MDGs). Senegal and Tanzania are no exception. In the electricity sector, low electrification rates on the one hand and the inability of public operators to rapidly expand the conventional network on the other led their governments to undertake institutional reforms characterized by the liberalization of the sector and the creation of agencies dedicated to rural electrification. Initially the prerogative of large national or international operators, rural electrification is now open to smaller private operators. Coupled with a reduction in administrative constraints and new sources of financing, liberalization is benefiting decentralized solutions (mini-grids and solar kits in particular).
The result in both countries is a diversification of electricity supply modes based on multiple devices, actors, resources, and modes of governance, which coexist locally and are analyzed in the research as co-production arrangements. Through a multi-scale comparative study conducted in Senegal and Tanzania in areas of diffuse urbanization, the thesis proposes a conceptual framework and methodology for rethinking the nature and conditions of the provision of an essential service based on the heterogeneous arrangements observed. It thus draws on the notion of local supply configurations to take an open-minded approach to all the electrification solutions available, understand their interdependencies, and examine the conditions for possible regulation of the various modes of electricity supply at this scale.
By combining a situated sociotechnical approach to electricity access supply configurations with a socioeconomic approach to local electricity markets, the thesis proposes a conceptualization of the emerging geographies of electricity supply in territories marked by rapid and diffuse urbanization. On the one hand, it demonstrates that neoliberal electrification policies have led to a diversification of electricity supply, better adapted to the plurality of demand, an average increase in coverage and access rates in these areas, and at least a partial improvement in the quality of services provided as a result of market competition. On the other hand, it highlights the limitations of these policies and their market-based logic, which have led to an increase in socio-spatial inequalities at all levels and the exclusion of the poorest from any form of access to electricity. The analysis of these pitfalls highlights the need for regulatory mechanisms, the premises of which, still fragile and disparate, are examined in the thesis. Questioning who gets what service and where, it finally outlines avenues for reflection on what the transition to a future essential (public) electricity service might look like in these changing urban environments.
Defense on Friday, January 14, 2022
Keywords: Local supply configurations; electrical hybridizations; inequalities of access; co-production; service regulation; Senegal; Tanzania
Year of thesis registration
: 2017
Doctoral school
: VTT – City, Transport and Territories
Composition of the jury
Ms. Sylvy JAGLIN, Gustave Eiffel University, Thesis Director
Ms. Pascale TROMPETTE, Grenoble Alpes University, Rapporteur
Ms. Luisa MORETTO, Free University of Brussels, Rapporteur
Mr. Eric VERDEIL, Sciences Po Paris, Examiner
Mr. Philippe LAVIGNE DELVILLE, IRD, Examiner
Mr. Bruno VALFREY, Hydroconseil, Guest