How can we switch off light poverty?

The document highlights that 1.3 billion people lack access to electric light, leading to significant health risks and economic limitations. It advocates for the use of solar-powered LED lighting and 'light centres' to bypass the prohibitive costs of grid expansion, particularly in Africa and Asia, while calling for collaboration between governments and the private sector to treat light as a basic human right.

• Approximately 1.3 billion people, or one in five people globally, lack access to electric light, which hinders human development by limiting business operations, healthcare, and education.
• The reliance on candles, wood fires, and kerosene lamps in communities without electricity causes 1.5 million deaths annually due to respiratory illnesses and fires.
• Solar-powered lighting is presented as a viable alternative to electric grids, which are often too expensive to implement across vast geographic areas. Solar lanterns cost between $10-20 per year for a single room, whereas kerosene costs $50.
• Philips is implementing 'light centres'—solar-powered LED systems covering roughly 7,000 m2—with a goal of installing 100 such centres in rural Africa by the end of 2015 to serve a region where 500 million people lack light.

APA

Rondolat, E. (2015). How can we switch off light poverty? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/how-can-we-switch-off-lighting-poverty/

Chicago

Rondolat, Eric. How can we switch off light poverty? World Economic Forum, 2015. https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/how-can-we-switch-off-lighting-poverty/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Rondolat |first1=Eric |title=How can we switch off light poverty? |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=18 January 2015 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/how-can-we-switch-off-lighting-poverty/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{rondolat2015how, author = {Rondolat, Eric}, title = {{How can we switch off light poverty?}}, publisher = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2015}, month = jan, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/how-can-we-switch-off-lighting-poverty/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }