SDG 7.1.1 – Electricity access
Progress towards energy access in Africa has been made, but in general the pace is too slow. This becomes clear when analysing the first indicator of the SDG7 target 7.1 – the proportion of people in Africa with access to electricity (indicator 7.1.1).
Whilst the past efforts made towards expanding electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have allowed a significant increase in coverage rate from 38.26% in 2014, to 51.43% in 2022, the absolute number of people without access to electricity fell only marginally, from 606 million in 2014, to 588 million in 2022.
Over the study period, a total of EUR 22.2 billion was directed towards electricity access (transmission & distribution – centralised grids and mini-grids – and decentralised solar energy) in SSA, equivalent to an average of EUR 2.5 billion/year. Finance to access shows a slight upward trend over the study period, with a peak at EUR 3.02 billion in 2021.
From 2019 to 2022, a total of EUR 0.8 billion of public finance was committed to solar-powered isolated grids and stand-alone systems. The trend shows a tenfold increase over the four years from EUR 0.03 billion in 2019, to EUR 0.41 billion in 2022.
These figures under-estimate the total size of financial flows as the subsector, ‘solar energy for isolated grids and stand-alone systems’, does not encompass all the finance to projects of this category due to the way the reporting is done under the OECD DAC CRS. There are numerous projects related to decentralised solar energy, which are categorised under the broad subsector of ‘Energy generation, renewable sources – multiple technologies’, but their amount cannot be isolated.
The main challenge is that the efforts being made, in respect of access expansion, struggle to keep pace with the rapid population growth. In addition, a series of shocks in the past years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the disruption of energy markets, pursuant to the war in Ukraine, and rising inflation, have slowed progress towards this target.
Whilst the overall picture shows progress over the study period, the pace is insufficient to achieve SDG7 within the target timeframe. If this current trend is maintained, the target will be largely missed, leaving 550 million people still lacking access to electricity in 2030, according to International Energy Agency (IEA). Universal access can still be reached, but now with a high probability of delay.
Although finance for electricity access has slightly increased over the study period, and has allowed for notable progress, this conclusion shows that a significant step-up in efforts will have to be provided in the future to achieve universal access. IEA estimates that USD 22 billion (EUR 20 billion) in investments in electrification should flow annually towards Africa to reach the goal by 2030 .This report estimates that international public finance and mobilised private finance for electricity access over the period 2014-2022 only reached on average EUR 2.5 billion annually.