Electricity access and rural development: Review of complex socio-economic dynamics and causal diagrams for more appropriate energy modelling

Our analysis confirms that electricity use is interconnected through complex causal relations with multiple dimensions of socio-economic development, viz. income generating activities, market production and revenues, household economy, local health and population, education, and habits and social networks. The causal diagrams can be seen as a first step of the conceptualization phase of model building, which aims at describing and understanding the structure of a system. The presence of multiple uncertain parameters and complex diffusion mechanisms that describe the complex system under analysis suggests that systems-dynamic simulations can allow modelling such complex and dynamic relations, as well as dealing with the high uncertainties at stake, especially when coupled with stochastic approaches.