Impact of Rural Electrification on Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Gulu and Ebbo Communities in Lapai Local Government Area, Niger State.

Abstract

Access to reliable electricity remains a central challenge to sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa, where millions of rural households still depend on traditional energy sources. This study examines the impact of rural electrification on poverty reduction in Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State, Nigeria. Specifically, it compares welfare outcomes between Gulu community, which has benefited from electrification, and Ebbo community, which remains largely un-electrified. The study adopted a quantitative quasi-experimental design using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique to control for selection bias and estimate the causal effect of electrification. Primary data were obtained from 300 households 120 from Gulu and 180 from Ebbo selected through a multi-stage sampling process. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to estimate propensity scores, while nearest-neighbour matching (1:1, caliper 0.05) was employed to derive the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT). The results revealed that households in Gulu were 12 percentage points more likely to escape multidimensional poverty and had approximately 19.7% higher household income compared to similar households in Ebbo. Robustness checks using kernel, radius, and inverse probability weighting confirmed the stability of these results. The findings indicate that electrification significantly enhances household welfare and contributes to poverty reduction in rural areas. It is therefore recommended that government and development partners expand rural electrification projects and integrate them with complementary initiatives such as entrepreneurship support, microcredit access, and rural infrastructure development to maximize welfare gains.