{"title":"Influence of the rural electrification program on food security in Togo","authors":"Aményon Akakpo, Shi Xinjie, Bingyu Huangfu","doi":"10.1007/s12571-025-01519-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The aim of this study is to assess the impact of the rural electrification program on food security in Togo. To achieve this objective, micro-econometrics methods for impact evaluation, along with Propensity Score Matching techniques, are employed. The study examines various outcomes, including production levels, household consumption expenditures, access to basic social services, rural households’ consumption behaviors, and poverty levels. The study utilizes data from the 2020 Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) conducted in 2018 in Togo. The findings reveal that the rural electrification program positively influences both production levels and household consumption expenditures. It facilitates access to health and educational services and essential product outlets through their expansion and/or establishment, enhancing the quality of these basic social services. Regarding consumption behavior, households benefiting from the rural electrification program engage in fewer food reduction strategies (such as reducing meal quantities or the number of daily meals). Ultimately, access to electricity in rural areas significantly reduces poverty levels. In conclusion, the rural electrification program has played a crucial role in alleviating food insecurity in Togo.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":567,"journal":{"name":"Food Security","volume":"17 2","pages":"363 - 386"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Food Security","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-025-01519-7","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The aim of this study is to assess the impact of the rural electrification program on food security in Togo. To achieve this objective, micro-econometrics methods for impact evaluation, along with Propensity Score Matching techniques, are employed. The study examines various outcomes, including production levels, household consumption expenditures, access to basic social services, rural households’ consumption behaviors, and poverty levels. The study utilizes data from the 2020 Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) conducted in 2018 in Togo. The findings reveal that the rural electrification program positively influences both production levels and household consumption expenditures. It facilitates access to health and educational services and essential product outlets through their expansion and/or establishment, enhancing the quality of these basic social services. Regarding consumption behavior, households benefiting from the rural electrification program engage in fewer food reduction strategies (such as reducing meal quantities or the number of daily meals). Ultimately, access to electricity in rural areas significantly reduces poverty levels. In conclusion, the rural electrification program has played a crucial role in alleviating food insecurity in Togo.
期刊介绍:
Food Security is a wide audience, interdisciplinary, international journal dedicated to the procurement, access (economic and physical), and quality of food, in all its dimensions. Scales range from the individual to communities, and to the world food system. We strive to publish high-quality scientific articles, where quality includes, but is not limited to, the quality and clarity of text, and the validity of methods and approaches.
Food Security is the initiative of a distinguished international group of scientists from different disciplines who hold a deep concern for the challenge of global food security, together with a vision of the power of shared knowledge as a means of meeting that challenge. To address the challenge of global food security, the journal seeks to address the constraints - physical, biological and socio-economic - which not only limit food production but also the ability of people to access a healthy diet.
From this perspective, the journal covers the following areas:
Global food needs: the mismatch between population and the ability to provide adequate nutrition
Global food potential and global food production
Natural constraints to satisfying global food needs:
§ Climate, climate variability, and climate change
§ Desertification and flooding
§ Natural disasters
§ Soils, soil quality and threats to soils, edaphic and other abiotic constraints to production
§ Biotic constraints to production, pathogens, pests, and weeds in their effects on sustainable production
The sociological contexts of food production, access, quality, and consumption.
Nutrition, food quality and food safety.
Socio-political factors that impinge on the ability to satisfy global food needs:
§ Land, agricultural and food policy
§ International relations and trade
§ Access to food
§ Financial policy
§ Wars and ethnic unrest
Research policies and priorities to ensure food security in its various dimensions.