Poor People's Energy Outlook 2016

What do poor people in the developing world identify as their most pressing energy needs – electric lighting, modern cookstoves, power for health clinics? Drawing on in-depth consultations with selected energy-poor communities in Bangladesh, Kenya and Togo, the PPEO 2016 shines a light on the energy access priorities of some of the world’s poorest and most marginalized communities, highlighting the mix of energy solutions which could help enable them to lead the lives that they value.

Recognizing its role as a key enabler in international development, energy has received extraordinary levels of international attention in recent years; culminating in a dedicated energy access goal within the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Immense amounts of political, financial and human capital are therefore set to be invested in renewable energy, energy efficiency and, of fundamental importance, energy access.

However, the vast majority of solutions proposed are still those that, to date, have left well over two billion people either totally without access to energy or without adequate, safe, reliable, and affordable energy services. If this situation is left unchallenged, the outlook remains bleak for poor people and global aspirations to universalize energy access by 2030.

Seeking to address this, the PPEO 2016 offers an alternative framework for national energy planning which incorporates more fully the expressed needs and priorities of the energy-poor. By exploring what it means to plan for energy access from the bottom up, and identifying a range of energy access solutions which could meet poor people’s prioritized needs, it offers national decision-makers a golden opportunity to achieve national energy access targets more quickly, cheaply and sustainably than the status quo currently provides.

This edition is the first in a new suite of three PPEOs which takes the Total Energy Access framework developed in previous editions and illustrates how it can be operationalized in terms of planning (this edition), financing (2017) and delivering at scale (2018).

This book is essential reading for national planners, policy and decision makers within energy, agriculture and education government departments; staff in international agencies; researchers in the energy sector; and private actors and financiers looking to invest in modern, affordable and sustainable energy for all.