The report aims to provide the international community with a global dashboard to register progress on energy access, energy efficiency, renewable energy and international cooperation to advance SDG 7. It assesses the progress made by each country on these four pillars and provides a snapshot of how far we are from achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets

The report finds that despite continued disruptions in economic activity and supply chains, renewable energy was the only energy source to grow through the pandemic. However, these positive global and regional trends in renewable energy have left behind many countries most in need of electricity. This was aggravated by a decrease in international financial flows for the second year in a row, falling to USD 10.9 billion in 2019.

SDG 7 targets also cover energy efficiency. From 2010 to 2019, global annual improvements in energy intensity averaged around 1.9 percent. This is well below the levels needed to meet SDG 7’s targets and to make up for lost ground, the average rate of improvement would have to jump to 3.2 percent.

In September 2021, the United Nations High-Level Dialogue on Energy brought together governments and stakeholders to accelerate action to achieve a sustainable energy future that leaves no one behind. In this context, the SDG 7 custodian agencies, 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), as they launch this report, are urging the international community and policymakers to safeguard gains toward SDG 7; to remain committed to continued action towards affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all; and to maintain a strategic focus on countries needing the most support.

Key highlights on SDG 7 targets

Access to electricity. The share of the world’s population with access to electricity rose from 83 percent in 2010 to 91 percent in 2020, increasing the number of people with access by 1.3 billion globally. The number without access declined from 1.2 billion people in 2010 to 733 million in 2020. However, the pace of progress in electrification has slowed in recent years which may be explained by the increasing complexity of reaching more remote and poorer unserved populations and the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meeting the 2030 target requires increasing the number of new connections to 100 million a year. At current rates of progress, the world will reach only 92 percent electrification by 2030.

Between 2010 and 2020, every region of the world showed consistent progress in electrification, but with wide disparities. Electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 46 percent in 2018 to 48 percent in 2020, but the region’s share of the global access deficit rose from 71 percent in 2018 to 77 percent in 2020, whereas most other regions, including Central and Southern Asia, saw declines in their share of the access deficits. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for more than three-quarters of the people (568 million people) who remained without access in 2020.

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