Rural electrification and employment in Rwanda

Abstract

The data from 2003 to 2020 were used in the study, and the autoregressive distributed lags with error correction term were used as the analysis method. The findings revealed that rural electrification access has a significant negative effect on unemployment and, in contrast to positive effect on employment in long run, the education index has a positive effect on unemployment rate and thus reduces the employment rate, while foreign direct investment has a negative effect on employment rate and thus increases the employment rate. The study recommends and invites more foreign direct investors in the energy sector and infrastructural development such as rural electrification program to increase electrification rates, which will positively impact employment rates, the Government should improve the incentives and subsidy schemes to make it easier for residents to purchase and access off grid solutions