The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Financial decision · 1996–2017
Morocco's PERG took rural electrification from 18% to 99.5% by spreading the hookup fee
A 1996 program let rural households pay their 10,000-dirham connection over seven years — access climbed from 18% to 99.5% by 2017.
ONEE (Morocco national utility)
The solution
In 1995 only 18% of rural Morocco had electricity, and the standard answer — grid extension paid for upfront — was unaffordable for dispersed villages with low incomes. In 1996 the government launched PERG, the Programme d'Électrification Rurale Généralisé, coordinated by the national utility ONEE.
The design tackled affordability directly: households paid 25% of the 10,000-dirham connection fee over seven years — about 40 dirhams ($4.2) a month — while ONEE covered 55% and beneficiary communes 20%. Homes too remote for the grid were equipped with solar photovoltaic kits.
By the end of 2017 rural electrification reached 99.5%: more than 42,000 villages and 2.1 million households connected. The electricity underpinned 193,440 income-generating activities in agriculture, commerce and small industry, and brought power to 1,070 dispensaries and 12,727 schools.
Why it worked
- Spreading the fee over seven years made connections affordable without giving electricity away
- Cost-sharing across ONEE and communes spread the burden among beneficiaries
- Solar kits served villages where grid extension was never viable
- Electricity arrived before demand existed, so power created its own customers
What can be applied
When the connection fee blocks access, don't subsidize it outright: spread it over years at a price households can actually pay, and share the rest between the utility and the community.
Aftermath
Morocco kept pushing toward universal access, targeting 99.93% by 2019, and the PERG model became the reference for electrification across Africa. The World Bank's power-sector study cites the program as proof that rural electrification can succeed within a state-owned utility — while noting the social mission still required tariff and financial restructuring for the utility to stay solvent.
Sources
- What Can Developing Countries Learn from Morocco's Experience with Power Sector Reforms?
- Electrification rurale : à deux doigts de l'accès universel, le Maroc montre l'exemple
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