Community expectations of energy development in Kenya

This study focused on under­stand­ing the pri­or­i­ties and expec­ta­tions of dif­fer­ent ener­gy projects (coal and wind) from the per­spec­tives of host com­mu­ni­ties in Lamu and Marsabit Coun­ties, Kenya. The case stud­ies includ­ed the pro­posed wind farm and coal pow­er plant in Lamu as well as the Lake Turkana Wind Pow­er Project (LTWP) in Marsabit Coun­ty. In the devel­op­ment of ener­gy projects, host com­mu­ni­ties are often direct­ly and indi­rect­ly affect­ed or at the tail-end of val­ue chains. Access to basic mod­ern ser­vices such as clean ener­gy, infra­struc­ture, edu­ca­tion, and health ser­vices remains a fun­da­men­tal chal­lenge in cur­rent and pro­posed large-scale ener­gy host com­mu­ni­ties in Kenya, despite promis­es to improve such con­di­tions, espe­cial­ly in remote and mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties. Assess­ing the socio-eco­nom­ic per­for­mance of ener­gy projects at the local lev­el is there­fore impor­tant to ensure that local host com­mu­ni­ties are not left behind dur­ing the pur­suit of broad­er, nation­al-lev­el devel­op­ment processes.