Energy Poverty and Access to Electricity

The International Energy Agency estimated that around 685 million people worldwide lacked access to electricity in 2022, a number that had been falling for years before ticking upward slightly amid pandemic-era economic disruption and rising fuel and equipment costs, and the large majority of those without access, roughly 80 percent, live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where electrification has lagged population growth in many countries even as other regions have made rapid progress. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), adopted in 2015, commits signatory countries to ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by 2030, a target that the IEA and International Renewable Energy Agency's joint tracking reports indicate the world remains on course to miss without substantially accelerated investment.