- Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report is a global reference for information on progress toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- The aim of SDG 7 is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.”
- The annual report summarises global progress on electricity access, clean cooking, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and international cooperation to advance SDG 7.
- It presents updated statistics for each of the indicators and provides policy insights on priority areas and actions needed to spur further progress on SDG 7.
The report is produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO) – the five custodian agencies responsible for tracking progress toward SDG 7.
Progress toward 2030 targets remains off track, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, owing in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2022 energy crisis. Nonetheless, globally, policy progress and technological advances have shown some promising results, notably in boosting renewable energy deployment and achieving modest (though still insufficient) improvements in energy efficiency.
Elements of the SDG 7 agenda gained new momentum through various agreements in recent years, including the consensus reached at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) to triple global renewable power capacity and double the global average annual rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030, and through the 2025 Dar es Salaam Declaration to expand electricity access, a declaration endorsed by 48 African countries.
The greatest growth in access between 2020 and 2023 occurred in Central and Southern Asia, while the pace of progress in Sub-Saharan Africa calls for significant acceleration. Central and Southern Asia have both made significant strides toward universal access, reducing their access gap from 414 million in 2010 to just 27 million in 2023.
The report reveals that In Sub-Saharan Africa, 35 million people gained access to electricity in 2023, but population growth over the same period was 30 million, so the net electricity access gap for the region fell by just 5 million (from 570 million in 2022 to 565 million in 2023). The region now accounts for 85 percent of the global population without electricity, up from 50 percent in 2010. Of the countries with the largest access deficits (according to 2023 data), 18 of the top 20 were in Sub-Saharan Africa.
As in the previous year, the deficits in Nigeria (86.6 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (79.6 million), and Ethiopia (56.4 million) alone accounted for more than one-third of the world’s population without electricity. Thus new efforts must focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially on the countries with the greatest access gaps.
Link to the report summary HERE
Link to the full report HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
