Electric power: a pillar for agricultural transformation in Togo

This study aims to analyze the effect of access to electricity on agricultural structural transformation in Togo. Autoregressive distributed Lag Error Correction Model (ARDL-ECM) was used for empirical estimations. The data used come from the World Development Indicators database and cover the period of 1980–2020. The results indicate that, in the short-term, a 1% increase of access to electricity translates into 1.128% reduction of the share of agriculture in the total GDP, a transfer of 0.018% of agricultural employment to service and industrial sectors while in the long-term, a 1% increase of access to electricity leads to 0.591% decrease of the share of agriculture in the total GDP and 0.25% transfer of agricultural labor to the service and industrial sectors. These results confirm the pivotal role of rural population access to electricity in the agricultural transformation process. Therefore, policies aiming to boost agricultural transformation in Togo should prioritize electrification in high-potential agricultural regions, ensuring not only access but also reliability, affordability, and quality of supply.