This is a pre-release of findings on energy access from the World Energy Outlook 2023, in support of discussions at the United Nations' SDG Summit on 18-19 September 2023.
This commentary is part of the IEA's support of the first global stocktake of the Paris Agreement, which will be finalized in the run up to COP28, the next UN Climate Change Conference, at the end of 2023. Find other reports in this series on the IEA's Global Energy Transitions Stocktake page.
The pandemic and global energy crisis that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine dealt a strong blow to progress on improving access to electricity. The number of people without access globally increased in 2022 for the first time in decades, rising by around 6 million to roughly 760 million. This setback was primarily concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where four in five people without access live today.
Data from the first half of 2023 suggests a welcome turnaround. The number of people globally without electricity access is projected to decrease to 745 million by the end of this year. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people without access is on track to stabilise in 2023 after rising for three consecutive years. Progress in developing economies in Asia is also set to resume, albeit at a much slower clip than before 2019.
The latest data and International Energy Agency (IEA) analysis also show that the 2022 backslide, while alarming, could have been worse. Affordability measures taken by some governments in Asia and Africa reinforced efforts to connect households through grid and off-grid solutions and helped moderate the decline in access last year.
