Electricity Access Keeps Climbing Globally

According to the International Energy Agency, an OECD intergovernmental organization, about 87 percent of the world’s population has access to electricity. In 2000, by the IEA’s estimates under three-quarters of the world’s population had regular access to electricity. With electricity access now just shy of 90 percent, the total number of people without electricity is now under a billion for the first time ever.

Increasing access to electricity has shown to increase economic, health, and academic prospects. Those without electricity are concentrated in the poorest countries in the world, largely in sub-Saharan Africa. While many countries still are home to a majority of people without electricity, a number of case studies over the past 20 years have shown that countries can expand their access to electricity to the majority of their population in under a decade.