Application of an alternative framework for measuring progress towards SDG 7.1

What official access counts miss

The official SDG 7.1 indicator for electricity counts about 789 million people without access in 2018. Yet recent estimates suggest that as many as 3.5 billion people live without access to reliable electricity. Much of that gap reflects what the official indicators are built to measure.

Target 7.1 commits to 'affordable, reliable and modern energy services' by 2030. The indicators used to track it are binary: they count connections to a modern energy source, not the supply provided or the use made of it. A household counted as having access may receive a few hours of supply a day, may struggle to afford it, and may still cook mostly on solid fuel. We ask how far the official picture shifts when we apply a multi-dimensional alternative to the same households.

Three joint dimensions across ten national surveys

We apply an 'alternative framework' that follows the wording of the SDG 7.1 target as closely as possible. It builds on the World Bank Multi-Tier Framework (MTF), which grades access on a ladder of tiers. It also separates two things: the quality of supply provided, and the household's capability to turn that supply into the energy services it needs. Rather than a tier ladder, we use one set of 'decent access' thresholds that a household must meet jointly.

For electricity, a household must use at least decent energy services (light, phone, and either television, fridge or cooling). It must also have electricity for at least 16 hours per day, and spend no more than 5% of the median non-energy expenditure in its expenditure quintile on it. For clean cooking, a household must use biogas, liquefied petroleum gas, electricity or natural gas stoves for at least 80% of daily cooking time. It must have those fuels available for at least 10 months of the year and pass the same 5% affordability test. Households served by both are tested against a combined 10% threshold.

We apply these thresholds to nationally representative MTF surveys in ten countries: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Honduras, Nepal, Kenya, Niger, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zambia. The Rwanda and São Tomé and Príncipe surveys did not collect household expenditures, so affordability is not assessed there.

Affordability is the most widespread binding constraint

We find that affordability is the most widespread constraint on electricity. Among households already counted as having access, at best 93% (Ethiopia) and at worst 29% (Niger) spend less than 5% of their annual expenditures on electricity. Use of decent energy services varies most, from 100% (Nepal) to just 37% (Ethiopia) of electrified households. Decent supply availability reaches at best 92% (Honduras) and at worst 51% (Ethiopia).

Clean cooking follows the same shape. Affordability again binds hardest: at best 82% (Cambodia) and at worst just 25% (Zambia) of households counted as having clean cooking access spend under 5% of annual expenditures on cooking fuels. Stove stacking, meaning continued use of solid-fuel stoves alongside a primary clean stove, is also evident. Between 100% (Honduras, where the survey did not capture stacking) and 41% (Cambodia) of these households use their clean stove for at least 80% of daily cooking time.

Among electrified households, the likelihood of decent services and supply availability rises with expenditure quintile. For clean cooking, we find no systematic link between income and time-use or fuel availability. Affordability, however, is more sharply associated with income for cooking fuels than for electricity, which likely reflects block tariffs for electricity. These associations are descriptive, not causal.

Narrow indicators reflect narrow ambitions

Households officially counted as having access to modern energy often still benefit only from minimal energy services. Many receive unreliable supply and struggle to afford the energy services they need for a decent standard of living.

We argue that the narrow indicators used to track SDG 7.1 reflect narrow ambitions. They mask the reality that we are further from affordable, reliable and modern energy for all than reported, and that poorer households are more often provided substandard access. The framework is an impulse for further discussion, not a final metric. It shows how the existing indicators can be strengthened with measures of actual energy service use and supply quality. Affordability is poorly reported across the MTF datasets, and adding such questions to regularly repeated surveys (DHS, LSMS, MICS) deserves exploration.