“Among the 20 countries with the largest populations lacking access to electricity, India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Myanmar have made the most significant progress since 2010,” the WB said in its report on “Tracking SDG7: The energy progress report 2019”.
Four countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Kenya have electrified at a rate of about 5.0 percentage points each year between 2010 and 2017, the report said.
The Washington-based lender said global growth in access was driven by countries like India and Bangladesh, where incremental access outpaced population growth by a significant margin.
In 2017, the 20 countries with the greatest access deficit (as measured by the number of people without access to electricity) accounted for about 78 per cent of the global population lacking electricity, it said.
Thus, efforts to electrify these countries will determine in large part the degree of progress made on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 7.1.1, the Bank report said.
The Washington-based lender has forecasted that building on the recent progress, Indonesia and Bangladesh are expected to achieve the universal access of electricity by 2030.
In the rest of Asia, the majority of countries would attain electrification levels greater than 90 per cent by 2030, the Bank said.
Meanwhile, the Power Division has claimed that Bangladesh’s access to electricity has now reached 93 per cent.
“The WB report has used the data upto 2017. But until last month April 2019, the electricity coverage has increased to 93 per cent of the total population,” a senior Power Division official said.
The WB, in its report, said in recent years, pronounced progress in expanding access to electricity was made in several countries, notably India, Bangladesh, and Kenya.
As a result, the global population without access to electricity decreased to about 840 million in 2017 from 1.2 billion in 2010, it added.
The Bank report said electrification efforts have been particularly successful in Central and Southern Asia, where 91 per cent of the population had access to power in 2017.
Access rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Eastern and Southeastern Asia, climbed to 98 per cent in 2017, it added.
The WB report said an annual net decrease of 45 million in Central and Southern Asia is particularly “stunning”, driven mainly by progress in India and Bangladesh, which together constitute 14 per cent of the global access deficit.
Central and Southern Asia’s remarkable progress brought the region’s access rate from 75 per cent in 2010 to 91 per cent in 2017.
Gender-disaggregated analysis of electricity access for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Rwanda show significant variability in households’ access rates based on gender of head of household, the Washington-based lender said.
In rural areas, results are mixed: in Ethiopia and Myanmar, female-headed households have higher access rates, while in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Rwanda, male-headed households are more likely to have access, according to the report.
“In urban areas, electricity access is higher among female-headed households in all countries except Rwanda. Shifting focus to electricity source, there is a more significant gender gap in off-grid penetration,” the report said.
Male-headed households are more likely to be connected to the grid than female-headed households in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Rwanda, while the contrary is true for Ethiopia and Myanmar, the Bank report said.
It also said male-headed households have higher access to off-grid electricity in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Rwanda, while female-headed households have higher off-grid access in Cambodia. Ethiopia and Myanmar have the widest gender gaps.
There is no gender gap in Bangladesh, the report said.
The WB report said in Bangladesh, some 20 million people still do not have access to electricity.
The Bank report said in 2017, a small set of access-deficit countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Fiji, Mongolia, Nepal, Rwanda, and Uganda — provided 3-11 per cent of their populations with access to electricity from off-grid sources.
