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Abstract |
Energy poverty is widely diffused and persistent in sub-Saharan Africa. Even in areas that formally have electricity access, power consumption and supply reliability are largely inadequate. Yet, most institutional statistics fail to capture these different dimensions and rely on rapidly outdated and unwieldy household surveys. In this study, we process high-resolution population distribution maps (including demographic and migration trends), satellite-measured nighttime light, and settlement information for sub-Saharan Africa. This allows us to derive multi-dimensional estimates of electricity access over space and time and compare them with a set of published records. Our results reveal wide inequalities in the pace and quality of electrification, which cannot be observed in existing statistics. We show that the pace of electrification must more than triple to fulfill SDG 7.1.1 and discuss why electrification policy could fall short if aimed solely at boosting electricity connections. |
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