How public capital has enabled electricity access

Universal access has been consistently built on public investment and subsidies. The IEA estimates the private sector finances under 30% of electricity-access investment; the rest is public, concessional or state-directed. Every historical success story confirms the pattern.^[6]

The United States went from 10% to 90% rural access in two decades after the 1936 Rural Electrification Administration offered low-cost federal loans. China connected roughly 900 million people in under thirty years through state utilities. Vietnam reached 97% rural access by 2010 on public investment and donor support.

The same model is at work today. Kenya's Last Mile Connectivity Project runs through KPLC with World Bank, AfDB, AFD and EU finance; Rwanda's results-based electrification is backed by the AIIB and AfDB. Where access expands fast, public capital leads and private capital follows — never the reverse.

Left to the market rules of advanced economies, the developing economies would pay a premium — expensive electricity with cost-reflective tariffs instead of the traditional highly subsidised grid connection. The dichotomy is not between public and private investment — both are essential — but between the use of public and concessional capital for making electricity affordable and allowing for industrialization and development. This would avoid perpetuating an exclusion that could persist for generations.

Every country that achieved universal access did so using public money to invest and subsidize the electricity sector ensuring that electricity prices allow for industrialization and development. Expecting private investors to electrify the world's poorest countries without massive amounts of public or concessional capital delivered to make electricity cheap in historical terms is not consistent with any historical records.