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The Electrify Africa Act is back, re-vamped for 2015 and a new session of Congress. Representatives Royce, Engel, and Bass introduced the bill this week (the House passed an earlier version last year, but the Senate didn’t vote on corresponding legislation before the e...

Energy poverty is back on the global agenda and Africa is the front line. The International Energy Agency (IEA) just released their annual World Energy Outlook with a special report on the African energy sector.

Energy poverty is an endemic and crippling problem; nearly 600 million people in Africa live without access to any power, which also means no access to safer and healthier electric cooking and heating, powered health centers and refrigerated medicines, light to study at night, or electricity to run ...

Africa is going to need a lot more power. The average citizen in Sub-Saharan Africa consumes just 536 kWh/year, versus 6,627 in Europe or 13,246 in the United States. 

Lant Pritchett lambasts the donor focus on eliminating extreme poverty because getting the income of poor people to the $1.25/day threshold is a pathetic definition of success.  A decade ago Lant had proposed $15/day as more sensible minimum for human wellbeing. Today, ...