Employment Impact Assessment of the Green Mini-Grid (GMG) Facility: Additional 20 Mini-Grid Sites in Turkana County, Kenya

For a summary of the report and its main findings, please see the Information Brief below.

The ILO’s STRENGTHEN2 project is conducting employment impact assessments of investments in sub-Saharan Africa to promote the creation of more and better jobs. The report provides an employment impact assessment of the Green Mini-Grid (GMG) Facility in Kenya, focusing on the development of 20 additional mini-grid sites in Turkana County. It follows on from a previous assessment of 33 mini-grid sites under the EU-funded phase of the project (GMG2). Employment is measured using the same approach as before, quantitative and qualitative data were collected through observations during a field visit, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire to obtain information on the operational side of mini-grids and on direct employment generated from the design and construction phase. Temporary non-direct jobs were estimated using the ILO’s Structural Model for Sustainable Development (SMSD).

Based on data availability, the number of jobs created are expressed as either the headcount, which includes all workers, whether full-time or part-time. For the estimates on direct employment, jobs are also expressed in terms of the full-time equivalent (FTE), which totals the hours worked by all employees to compute the number of full-time positions. The results estimate that the additional 20 mini-grid sites in Turkana county produced:

• 70 permanent direct jobs and 88 temporary non-direct jobs (annualized FTE)[1] were created through the design, construction, operations and maintenance of the project
• This leads to an estimated 7.9 FTE direct jobs created per mini-grid site
• For the non-direct temporary employment effects, 207 jobs are estimated, expressed as the headcount
• For direct employment, per million euros invested, it is estimated that 36 FTE jobs are created.

Similar to the previous assessment, the results indicate a bias towards male and unskilled jobs. Youth employment accounts for 80 per cent of jobs during the construction phase. Temporary non-direct jobs fall mainly within the Agriculture sector. To address these gaps, it is recommended to support vocational training programmes to develop local skills, with a particular focus on youth and women, to increase their participation. To increase the non-direct temporary employment, the project should consider the increased use of locally sourced materials and services during construction and operation phases, which would help boost local supply chains and create more non-direct temporary jobs.

This analysis adds to the pool of research forming on mini-grid construction in Kenya and across the continent more widely as part of the STRENGTHEN2 project. Drawing on comparisons from the previous assessment of 33 mini-grid sites in Western Kenya, recommendations can be made for promoting decent job creation within the sector. Some differences on the number of jobs created could be observed across the two assessments, mainly due to some activities not yet being completed for the construction of sites in Turkana. Different CAPEX breakdowns were also used for the estimation of non-direct temporary jobs and the results reinforce the need to lessen the reliance on imported components during construction.

1 Annualized is referring to jobs for a one year duration of the project.