SCALING SUSTAINABLE ACCESS PATHWAYS FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE AND HARDEST TO REACH PEOPLE

The document argues that 'business-as-usual' energy solutions fail the poorest populations, particularly women and those in rural Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. It proposes two primary pathways for acceleration: integrating energy services into social protection safety nets and empowering women as entrepreneurs within the energy value chain. The paper highlights the role of digitalization and mobile money in improving targeting and financial inclusion, while noting significant gaps in evidence and funding for decentralized energy projects compared to general subsidies.

• Current energy policies are insufficient to meet Sustainable Development Goal 7; by 2030, 645 million people are projected to lack electricity, with 600 million of those in rural Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The poorest populations face extreme energy costs; 80% of those without electricity live on less than $3 a day, yet collectively spend $37 billion annually on basic energy.
• Social protection systems can be adapted to provide energy access, such as India's Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, which aimed to provide 50 million free LPG connections to women from low-income households by 2019.
• Digitalization of energy subsidies reduces fraud and increases efficiency; for example, shifting LPG subsidies to bank accounts in India reduced transfer leakages by 24%.
• Mobile money systems can significantly reduce poverty and improve energy consumption, as seen in Kenya where M-PESA lifted 194,000 households (2% of the population) out of poverty, with more pronounced impacts for female-headed households.
• There is a stark disparity in funding; between 2006 and 2015, only 3.5% of international public climate finance for energy projects reached decentralized energy projects, and only 0.06% reached clean cooking.
• Women are highly effective as energy entrepreneurs in 'last-mile' areas because they possess unique social networks and can better communicate benefits to other women, often outselling men by nearly 3:1 in some contexts.
• Women face significant financial barriers to entrepreneurship; in Kenya, while 48% of business owners are women, they receive only 7% of formal credit.
• Women's economic empowerment through energy enterprises has high multiplier effects, as women reinvest 90% of their income into families and communities, compared to 30-40% for men.

APA

Sustainable Energy for All (2017). SCALING SUSTAINABLE ACCESS PATHWAYS FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE AND HARDEST TO REACH PEOPLE. https://www.seforall.org/system/files/gather-content/P1ScalingSustainableAccessPathways.pdf

Chicago

Sustainable Energy for All. SCALING SUSTAINABLE ACCESS PATHWAYS FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE AND HARDEST TO REACH PEOPLE. 2017. https://www.seforall.org/system/files/gather-content/P1ScalingSustainableAccessPathways.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Sustainable Energy for All |title=SCALING SUSTAINABLE ACCESS PATHWAYS FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE AND HARDEST TO REACH PEOPLE |date=November 2017 |url=https://www.seforall.org/system/files/gather-content/P1ScalingSustainableAccessPathways.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{sustainableenergyforall2017scaling, author = {{Sustainable Energy for All}}, title = {{SCALING SUSTAINABLE ACCESS PATHWAYS FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE AND HARDEST TO REACH PEOPLE}}, institution = {Sustainable Energy for All}, year = {2017}, month = nov, url = {https://www.seforall.org/system/files/gather-content/P1ScalingSustainableAccessPathways.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }