Right at this very moment 621m Africans – two-thirds of the continent’s population – live without electricity. And the numbers are rising. A kettle boiled twice a day in the United Kingdom uses five times as much electricity as someone in Mali uses in a year. Nigeria is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters but 93m Nigerians depend on firewood and charcoal for heat and light. On current trends, there is no chance that Africa will hit the global target of energy for all by 2030.
Unlike droughts, health epidemics and illiteracy, Africa’s energy crisis seldom makes the headlines. Yet the social, economic and human costs are devastating. Inadequate and unreliable electricity undermines investment. Power shortages cut economic growth by 2-4 per cent annually. The toxic fumes released by burning firewood and dung kill 600,000 people a year – half of them children. Health clinics are unable to refrigerate life-saving vaccines and children are denied the light they need to study.