Achieving Clean Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the lowest energy access rates in the world. Electricity reaches only about half of its people, while clean cooking only one-third; roughly 600 million people lack electricity and 890 million cook with traditional fuels (IEA,2018a). Thirteen countries in SSA have less than 25% access, compared to only one in
developing Asia (World Bank, 2018). Economic growth in the region is also relatively low at an estimated an 2.8% percent in 2018, compared to 7.1% in South Asia (IMF,2018). This dramatic lack of energy access stifles economic growth and sustainable development (World Bank, 2017).
Despite promising technology and market trends, today’s policies and patterns of finance and investment are off-track. They do not recognize the transformative potential of solar off-grid and mini-grid solutions to deliver clean energy access, nor do they incorporate the potentially huge social and economic benefits of electricity access
and clean cooking.
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The level of investment required to achieve universal access in SSA is estimated by the IEA (2018) to be US $27 billion per year (2018-30). which is at least double current levels of financing – highlighting the need for major increases from domestic sources and international sources.
An urgent, near-term priority is to reform subsidies from public and parastatal entities away from fossil fuels (OECD 2018). Direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuel production and power generation are estimated to be on the order of US $26 billion per year in 2015 (Whitley and van der Berg, 2015). Shifting domestic public finance away from these subsidies towards clean energy access could make a significant contribution to filling the financing gap.
(This report is published by Financing Climate Futures:: Rethinking Infrastructure, a joint initiative of the OECD, UN Environment and the World Bank Group)