Empowering Africa - Access to power in the African continent

Access to electricity is a key factor for the future of the African continent. Energy poverty and lack of universal access to electricity services are, in fact, remarkably hurting human progress in Africa. Today, sub-Saharan Africa hosts 14 percent of the world’s population but 60 percent of the world’s people without access to electricity: of the more than 1 billion people globally who had no access to electricity, around 600 million lived in the region. In these conditions, many African countries are unable to develop a solid economy or provide basic health and education services to their citizens. The conference - starting from the analysis of present and future economic, demographic, social and technological trends presented in the volume Empowering Africa - will offer an assessment of the current status and of the future prospects of access to electricity in the African continent.