BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 8
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the early part of the decade, the outlook for access to electricity indicates continued progress to 2030 but without achieving the goal of universal access, Trend reports with reference to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The number of people remaining without access to electricity in 2030 is expected to decline under the policies set out in IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario to 660 million (8 percent of the global population), of whom some 555 million (or 85 percent) reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. SDG target 7.1 remains within reach, and policies implemented in several countries have put them on track to achieve universal access. The same cannot be said for many Sub-Saharan countries.
Developing Asia remains on track to reach an access rate of 98 percent by 2030, an improvement of close to 20 percentage points since 2010. The very populous countries of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines are on a pathway to reach full access before 2030; a few million people remain without access in countries such as Pakistan.
The region of Central and South America is projected to continue its steady progress, moving to 99 percent in 2030, with most of those remaining without access living in rural areas. Haiti remains the only major country in the region to have a substantial nonelectrified population. Past progress on energy access in many parts of Africa is being reversed: the number of people without access to electricity is set to increase in 2020, while basic electricity services have become una!ordable for up to 30 million people who previously had access. The COVID-19 crisis has brought into stark relief the sizeable global inequalities in access to reliable energy and health-care services, especially in rural and peri-urban areas, highlighting the need to expand access to help populations mitigate the e!ects of the pandemic (IEA 2020a).
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