Resource information
Sustainable development goals (SDGs)
placed access to basic services at the center of
international development in 2016-2030. Out of 17 goals,
five address the access of poor people to basic services: to
health in SDG3, to education in SDG4, and SDG5, to water and
sanitation in SDG6, to energy in SDG7, and to urban services
in SDG11. The mutually reinforcing relationship between
electricity access, economic development, and poverty
reduction is well established. The SDGs framed access to
basic services as a matter of dignity. The SDG synthesis
report promotes self-reliance of developing countries rather
than just the North-to-South aid, as the challenge of
poverty and exclusion extends beyond charity to the hungry
and the most deprived. Directly or otherwise, access to
electricity results in progress in all dimensions of human
welfare and development including education, health care,
access to water, essential communications and information as
well as simple financial transactional services, income
generation, and environmental sustainability. Also, a
positive relationship can be seen between electricity access
and the human development index (HDI).
