The importance of access to electricity compared to other forms of energy is enormous. For instance, its contribution to health, education, agriculture and environmental sustainability has facilitated human development. Moreover, particularly in rural areas, access to electricity has helped reduce time and effort spent (especially by women and children) in collecting other fuel such as kerosene for lighting. It has also reduced rural to urban migration in search of jobs and modern facilities. In addition, potential benefits of electricity in rural areas include crop irrigation, agro-processing and preservation of farm produce.

Ghana’s energy policy aims at ensuring a reliable and cost-effective supply of high-quality energy services for households, businesses, industries and the transport sector nationwide. The need to secure future electricity and modern fuel supplies has been touted as the pivot of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, despite the popular notion underpinning the energy access-poverty reduction nexus, policies and plans intended to create an enabling environment for improved energy access are seldom evaluated in most developing countries. 

Led by Prof. Francis Kemausour under the auspices of the Brew Hammond Energy centre, the project dubbed ‘GIS-based Support for Implementing Policies and Plans to Increase Access to Energy Services in Ghana’ was undertaken in line with complementing existing policies, strategies, plans and recommendations from the Energy for Poverty Reduction Action Plan (EPRAP) and the Ghana Energy Development and Access Project (GEDAP). This pilot project aimed to achieve national goals and the MDGs, and it is expected pilot the results shall be replicated in other countries of the ECOWAS Sub-region. Essentially, the project determined that Proper re-structuring and the provision of up-to-date information on energy issues are needed to inform energy policy formulation. Largely, the project demonstrated that the production of a digital map and a functional geo-database of the facilities could assist adequately in several ways. Firstly,  the distribution of energy through the Creation of a geo-database (spatial/attribute) for the features for updating, based on their conditions; capturing of the geometric and attribute data of electrified and un-electrified communities. The  update and modification of information concerning facilities for electricity distribution such as electrified and non-electrified communities and finally faster and easier retrieval of information for instantaneous use in planning, managing and monitoring of electrified communities as well as the trend of LPG access in communities.