Prioritising health facilities for energy investment across five African countries

RTI engaged VIDA under USAID’s Power Africa initiative to identify and prioritise health facilities requiring electrification in Kenya, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Niger.

VIDA combined national health facility inventories held by ministries of health with grid data from ministries of energy, satellite building footprints and population data. For each facility, VIDA established grid access status, facility type and capacity, and the population it serves, calculated as the number of people able to reach it within a drive time set by facility type.

Facilities were then ranked on need and reach, and the appropriate electrification route determined for each: grid connection, mini-grid or standalone solar. The prioritised dataset was delivered in VIDA’s platform and used by RTI and USAID to identify where electrification investment would have the greatest impact across the five countries.