666 Million People Worldwide Still Lack Electricity, Says UN Report

NEW YORK, June 26 (Bernama-WAM) -- Although nearly 92 per cent of the global population now has basic access to electricity, more than 666 million people still live without it, according to a report published on Wednesday by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners.

While the rate of basic energy access has improved since 2022, the current pace remains insufficient to achieve universal access by 2030, one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the report warned, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

Despite progress, significant regional disparities persist. The report estimates that 1.5 billion people in rural areas still lack access to clean cooking solutions, while more than two billion people continue to rely on polluting and hazardous fuels such as firewood and charcoal to meet their cooking needs.

bootstrap slideshow

“Despite progress in some parts of the world, the expansion of electricity and clean cooking access remains disappointingly slow, especially in Africa,” said Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol, as 85 per cent of the global population without electricity access reside in sub-Saharan Africa.

The report identified the lack of sufficient and affordable financing as a key reason for regional inequalities and slow progress, highlighting that “while international public financial flows to developing countries in support of clean energy have increased since 2022, the developing world received significantly fewer flows in 2023 than in 2016.”

The report called for strengthened international cooperation between the public and private sectors to scale up financial support for developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

-- BERNAMA-WAM