Imagine a typical day before access to an electricity supply. Students arrive at school before dawn, fumbling in the darkness to find their classrooms. Candles and lanterns cast flickering shadows, making it hard to read and write. Teachers struggle to engage their students and are hampered by outdated resources. For most rural schools in Zimbabwe, this has been a daily reality for decades.
According to Zimbabwe’s 2022 Population and Housing Census, 62% of the population has access to electricity but there is a significant rural-urban divide. Notably, 91.1% of households without electricity are in rural areas, compared to 9.9% in urban areas. Breaking this down further, 23.4% of rural residents have access to grid electricity, whereas 87.4% of urban residents do. Furthermore, electricity access remains a challenge for healthcare, with 32.5% of health facilities completely lacking an electricity supply and many others facing unstable power provision which compromises the delivery of essential services.
As the country presses ahead with efforts to widen access to electricity, thousands of rural communities have witnessed their daily lives changing after the Rural Electrification Fund was launched. This focuses on extending conventional grid electricity, solar energy, biogas, and transmission infrastructure to ultimately improve living standards and promote sustainable development.
The fund has successfully completed 9,954 such projects to expand energy nationwide, improving the educational facilities at 2,877 primary schools and 1,434 secondary schools, ensuring access to quality healthcare services at 915 rural health centers, and stimulating local economies through 1,060 business centers.
One of the beneficiaries, Chawatama Secondary School in Buhera District, shines bright. Electric lights illuminate smiling faces and computers hum with possibility. Students delve into digital libraries, exploring new worlds. This is all due to the impact of simple, yet life-changing innovations.
“Before the government’s rural electrification program reached our school, Chawatama Secondary, our school was in darkness with no lights or internet connection and we struggled to provide our students with modern educational resources. But now, thanks to this initiative, our classrooms are illuminated and our students have access to computers and the Internet. The impact has been transformative. Our students can now explore the digital world, enhancing their learning experience,” Fedelis Tutsirayi Dukwende, Headmaster at Chawatama Secondary School, said. He further noted that, “the electrification of our local clinic, situated within the school, has also been a game-changer as pupils receive timely medical attention and our community benefits from improved healthcare services.”
In addition, the Rural Electrification Fund has benefitted 822 small-scale farms by enabling them to increase agricultural productivity and food security, while 321 government extension services and 1,500 homesteads are also now enjoying the benefits of electricity.
Although rural Zimbabwe has seen a big increase in electricity connections, electricity is still only accessible to a small part of the total population, prompting millions to continue to burn wood for cooking and heating. With the country set to become an upper-middle-income economy by 2030, the Zimbabwe Electric Supply Authority aims to empower at least three million more rural households with electricity over the next four years, bridging the gap and transforming communities forever.
