Report: Africa Needs $15bn Annually to Achieve Universal Electricity Access by 2035

• Current investments remain below $2.5bn per year

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

A new report has revealed that Sub-Saharan Africa will require about $15 billion in annual investments to achieve universal access to electricity by 2035, warning that current funding levels remain significantly below what is needed to bridge the continent’s vast energy access gap.

The report, titled: “Structuring for the Last Mile: Financing the Next Era of African Electrification”, was unveiled at the Africa Energy Forum 2026 by the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) and the Lightrock Energy Access Platform (LEAP), with support from The Rockefeller Foundation.

According to the report, more than half a billion people, most of them living in rural communities across Sub-Saharan Africa, still lack access to electricity, despite recent gains in electrification efforts across the continent.