In 2015, world leaders made an ambitious, unanimous commitment to help developing nations improve their prospects in health, employment, nutrition and access to affordable and clean energy by 2030. Every September, the United Nations and others assess how much progress has been made.
This year, the goals look increasingly out of reach. The data shows that trying to make modest improvements on all issues is not working. It is only diffusing already thin resources.
As world leaders gather this week for the United Nations General Assembly they should reimagine their approach. In today’s digital world, nothing matters more to individual well-being than energy: Access to electricity determines fundamental aspects of individuals’ lives, like whether they are healthy or have a job.
Instead of treating electrification as one of many goals, it’s time to see it is essential to all of them. And that means the world needs to focus investment and effort on getting reliable, clean electricity to the nearly 700 million people who don’t have any — and the 3.1 billion more who don’t have enough.
Ten years ago, when I was the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, there was an overwhelming feeling of optimism in the global community about ending poverty and addressing climate change, and for good reason. Reductions in poverty in the previous two decades and geopolitical cooperation inspired the United Nations to rally countries around a set of sustainable development goals on human and planetary well-being.
The sense of possibility in 2015 was based in part on money. At the time, developing economies were relatively flush. Free trade and globalization had led to record increases in foreign direct investment. Overseas development assistance, or foreign aid, had reached more than $96 billion in 2015. And debt relief efforts had canceled $130 billion in liabilities since 1999. In total, by 2014, the flow of financial resources into developing countries had risen to $225 billion, more than ever before. This high tide suggested it was possible to lift all boats.
Unfortunately, that tide is now waning, and it looks unlikely to return any time soon. Competition among China, Russia and the United States and their allies has stymied international organizations and action. Populism has become a potent ideology, curtailing free trade, international agreements and more. Accordingly, assistance to developing countries decreased by $4 billion, or 2 percent, in 2022 from the previous year. Though preliminary data suggests it rebounded some in 2023, aid is still insufficient to achieve all of the goals.
Meanwhile, lending from the private sector to these countries has fallen, while interest rates on existing debt have increased. Some $50 billion is now expected to flow out of developing countries mostly to pay interest on debts this year, a shocking reversal from a decade ago.
Today, leaders in developing countries — and their partners at the United Nations and other international organizations — are facing a series of hard choices. Forty-eight countries are spending more on debt interest than on education or public health.
Thankfully, technological advances have opened another path. Improved solar panels, batteries and other breakthroughs now make it far easier to provide reliable, clean electrification to everyone. The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative has highlighted the correlation between a lack of electricity access and education, poor health and malnourishment. Electrifying the world could produce the largest development gains since the 1990s.
Electrification is about more than progress for individuals; it makes the world safer and more secure. High energy prices are straining livelihoods at a moment when coups, migration and unrest are destabilizing regions. And because the countries where energy access is lowest are projected to produce as much as 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, connecting people there to clean energy can help prevent climate catastrophe for us all.
But the world needs to put more attention and resources into this much-needed energy transition to ensure it reaches everyone. Some institutions are doing just that. The World Bank and the African Development Bank, in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, which I lead, and others, have committed $30 billion to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. With this kind of capital, governments and companies together will be able to accelerate projects in challenging environments. Beyond lighting homes, the initiative could also power health care facilities that serve up to 90 million people, avoid as many as 65 megatons of carbon dioxide, allow two million to three million people to improve their education and create millions of jobs, according to an early analysis by Sustainable Energy for All, an international organization that works on electricity access.
The global community set its 2015 goals under particular geopolitical, economic and technological circumstances — circumstances that have changed. By focusing on getting electricity to everyone, we can make the world more secure and stable and perhaps even more optimistic once again.
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