Nigeria has once again been ranked as the country with the highest number of people without access to electricity, according to the World Bank's 2025 energy progress report.
The report, titled “Tracking Sustainable Development Goal 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025” and released on Tuesday, reveals that an estimated 86.8 million Nigerians lacked access to electricity in 2023 — the largest electricity access deficit of any country globally. This marks the third consecutive year Nigeria has held this unenviable position.
According to the report, only 61 percent of Nigeria’s population had access to electricity in 2023, while a mere 26 percent had access to clean cooking energy.
The report underscores a wider regional challenge, noting that 18 of the 20 countries with the weakest electricity access rates are located in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“In 2023, the 20 countries with the largest electricity access deficits accounted for 76 percent of the global total, up from 75 percent in 2022,” the report stated. “Once again, Nigeria (86.8 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (79.6 million), and Ethiopia (56.4 million) topped the list, together accounting for roughly a third of the entire global access deficit.”
Some of the countries with the lowest national access rates include South Sudan (5 percent), Chad (12 percent), and Burundi (12 percent), all of which have made only marginal progress since 2010.
The World Bank further observed that while 35 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa gained access to electricity in 2023, the region’s population grew by 30 million in the same period. As a result, the net reduction in the electricity access gap was only 5 million — from 570 million in 2022 to 565 million in 2023.
The region now accounts for a staggering 85 percent of the global population living without electricity, a sharp rise from 50 percent in 2010.
Meanwhile, the report highlighted faster progress in other parts of the world, particularly Central and Southern Asia. These regions collectively reduced their electricity access gap from 414 million in 2010 to just 27 million in 2023.
Looking ahead to 2030, the World Bank said global efforts have yielded some results. Since 2010, 665 million people have gained access to electricity, and 21 countries have reached near-universal access.
However, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that approximately 645 million people — mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa — will still lack access to electricity by 2030 if current trends and policies persist. Only a fraction of the countries currently lacking universal access are on track to reach near-universal access by the end of the decade.
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