State of Electricity Access Report (SEAR) 2017

The State of Electricity Access Report (SEAR) 2017 examines the critical role of energy toward the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and provides a snapshot of the status of electricity access worldwide, based on the recent Global Tracking Framework.

It explores how countries can create a conducive environment for a transformative electricity access roll out, how clean energy fits into the picture, and how emerging and innovative service delivery models can accelerate progress on meeting the goals.

It also delves into topics ranging from electricity planning, human capital, and gender, to climate change, energy efficiency, and results-based financing with the goal of prompting governments, donors, the private sector, civil society organizations, and practitioners to develop solutions to close the electricity access gap by integrating lessons learned from countries that have successfully expanded electricity access and through insights drawn from innovative business and delivery models.

The report sets out to answer five main questions:

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• What is the status of electricity access?

• What are the challenges and drivers of transformative electricity access?

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• What are the emerging and innovative business and delivery models?

It finds that:

• The. A substantial acceleration of efforts and investments are needed to achieve this objective.
• While nearly 1 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone may gain electricity access by 2040, an estimated 530 million will still not have electricity access due to population growth. 
• Energy is inextricably linked to every other critical sustainable development challenge – health, education, food security, gender equality, poverty reduction, employment, and climate change, to name a few. That is why meeting universal electricity access is essential to reaching other 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
• In many countries with low levels of electricity access, both grid (traditional power lines) and off-grid solutions (solar mini and micro grids) are vital for achieving universal access – but they must be supported by an enabling environment with the right policies, institutions, strategic planning, regulations, and incentives.
• Rapidly decreasing costs for renewable energy technologies such as solar, and a focus on energy efficiency measures can help countries expand access to energy for their people.  
• · Innovative energy service delivery mechanisms offer new opportunities for private sector-driven off-grid electrification and accelerating universal electricity access, but only if countries can create the right environment for them to be replicated and scaled up.

SEAR, funded by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), is one of four flagship reports under ESMAP’s Sustainable Energy for All Knowledge hub. The others are: RISE: Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy, GTF: Global Tracking Framework and MTF: Multi-Tier Framework for Measuring Energy Access.