Rural electrification, the process of bringing electricity to remote and rural areas without access to it, is crucial to support the socio-economic development of communities and improve their living conditions.

Indeed, rural electrification generates the following effects:

• Increase in educational achievement, through allowing young people to study early in the morning or late at night.
• Greater efficiency and productivity, allowing businesses to be open longer hours and farmers to have access to equipment and techniques that improve their productivity, such as irrigation, processing, or food preservation.
• Job creation, directly or indirectly.
• Healthcare improvements, through improved lighting; possibility for storage and cooling of vaccines, blood and medicines; and equipment, such as X rays or ultrasound scanners.
• Improvement of security and safety, notably through street lighting and lit road signs.
• Reduction of isolation and marginalization through telephone lines, television, and radio.
• Reduction of the use of kerosene lamps and of indoor open fires used for cooking, as well as other polluting equipment.
• Reduction of gender-based violence occurring during the collection of firewood in remote areas.

The biggest challenge for rural electrification is the extension of grid electricity, which presents constraints such as high costs involved in reaching remote areas, higher costs of use than in urban areas, and power efficiency. Therefore, off-grid technologies, and notably solar mini-grids, offer a promising alternative.