This sustainable energy guide highlights the opportunities, benefits and enablers that will help leaders guide their countries onto a more long-term sustainable and resilient development trajectory. As Southeast Asian countries recover better, they can also lead by example by translating their recovery actions into updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

Investments in energy have a significant GDP multiplier that will benefit the country and its economy.  

• For every US dollar invested in the transition towards renewable energy, an additional USD 0.93 of GDP growth above business as usual is expected to occur.
• Investments in the Southeast Asian region to achieve the ASEAN target of 23 percent renewable energy share by 2025 can provide an annual additional GDP growth of USD 25 billion.
• Providing modern clean cooking access to 30 percent of the currently unserved population is estimated to result in a macroeconomic benefit (economic, health and environment) of USD 15 for every dollar spent.

Based on nearly 100 in-depth interviews with senior-level officials from enterprises, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) working in energy access—combined with economic and financial data from each country—this study illustrates how enterprises delivering access to electricity and clean cooking are being financed in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar and Nigeria. These countries represent five highly different energy access markets across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. They also belong to the 20 high-impact countries whose efforts to increase access to electricity and clean cooking can make the most difference on a global scale (IEA and World Bank, 2015).

Achieving gender equality in energy access will be impacted, driven, or hampered by several upward trends: the decentralization of energy services, affordability of energy services, mobile payments, women’s entrepreneurship, urbanization, and humanitarian settings. This scoping report provides a scan of these trends from both a global perspective and in the context of five countries: Nigeria and Tanzania in Africa, Bangladesh and Myanmar in Asia, and Haiti in the Caribbean. Analyzing each of these trends in the national context will help policymakers propel energy access strategies from the perspective of how they would be best designed and deployed to reach both men and women.

The report, Levers of Change: How Global Trends Impact Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in Access to Sustainable Energy, provides powerful evidence of how women are often not given an equal chance to take advantage of some of the key trends. For example, while solar off-grid and mini-grid systems are often the lowest-cost option for closing energy access gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa, many poor women live outside formal financial systems, including access to consumer finance, that would enable them to finance a solar home system or a clean cooking stove. Another indicator of this challenge: While global access to mobile phones is increasing, women living in low- and middle-income countries are 10 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone.

The report also showcases how countries are taking specific actions to take bigger advantage of these trends, both for expanding energy access for their overall populations and for women in particular. Tanzania stands out with strong gender policies across multiple sectors, including energy, and a thriving offgrid solar home system market backed by a strong mobile money system. Bangladesh is on a path to reach universal electricity access by 2030, thanks largely to solar home systems that have been deployed with the help of government subsidies and loans.

These efforts have produced numerous positive gains for women and girls, such as reduced kerosene consumption, reduced time collecting fuel and increased time for schoolwork after dark. Nigeria’s pay-as-you-go solar market is trying to open up, but the country’s banking sector is making it difficult for rural populations to access mobile money that would enable energy access.

We hope that this scoping report will help identify barriers and opportunities for taking bigger advantage of global trends that offer promise to achieve faster, broader gains on energy access – especially for women who are often being overlooked and left behind in the sustainable energy transition.