Call for tailored financing to expand decentralised energy access

New global report urges stronger support to reach 666 million people still without electricity, mostly in rural and vulnerable communities.

KARACHI: A new global report has called for urgent, tailored financial support to expand decentralised renewable energy in developing countries, warning that 666 million people — mostly in rural and vulnerable communities — still lack basic access to electricity.

The Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025, released on June 25 by a consortium of international agencies, shows that while electricity access has grown to cover nearly 92% of the world’s population, the pace remains too slow to achieve universal access by 2030. Clean cooking access fares worse, with 2.1 billion people still relying on harmful fuels such as firewood, charcoal, and kerosene — contributing to serious health and environmental risks.

The report highlights decentralised renewable energy — including mini-grids, solar home systems, and off-grid clean cooking technologies — as the most viable solution to reach underserved populations. These systems are cost-effective, scalable, and better suited to remote, lower-income, and conflict-affected areas where central grid extension is not feasible or economically viable.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most affected, home to 85% of those without electricity and four out of five families without clean cooking access. Despite some progress, the region’s average installed renewables capacity is just 40 watts per capita — one-eighth of the average in other developing countries. Moreover, access to clean cooking continues to decline in the region, with 14 million more people falling behind each year — a trend that the report warns must be reversed urgently.

Charts courtesy of the Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025.

The report identifies insufficient and inaccessible financing as a key bottleneck. It urges reforms in public lending systems, increased concessional finance, more grants, and improved risk tolerance by donors to ensure greater inclusivity. International public financial flows to clean energy in developing countries rose 27% in 2023 to USD 21.6 billion but still lag behind 2016 levels. Most of the growth was debt-based, with grants forming less than 10% of total flows.

Other findings include a rise in global renewables capacity to 478 watts per capita, but stark inequalities persist. Clean cooking access improved globally from 64% in 2015 to 74% in 2023 — still far from the SDG target. Without significant acceleration, the world risks falling short of universal energy access by 2030.

The new report says that while overall progress in rural electrification outpaced that in urban areas, it was driven largely by advancements in Central and Southern Asia, where the number of people without access in rural areas dropped from 383 million in 2010 to just 24.8 million in 2023.

Pakistan: The report also listed Pakistan among the 20 countries with the highest electricity and clean cooking access deficits. As of 2023, around 11 million people in Pakistan remained without electricity, while 112 million continued to rely on polluting fuels for cooking. These figures underscore the need for more region-specific investment and technology deployment to ensure inclusive energy transitions in South Asia.

-- The Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025 is a joint publication by the International Energy Agency (IEA), International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), World Bank, and World Health Organization (WHO).

News Report courtesy: Social Track, Karachi.