This flagship report of the East Asia and the Pacific Region of the  World Bank outlines an ambitious course of action to eradicate energy  poverty in the Region by 2030. Despite its impressive economic growth,  over 1 billion people in the EAP Region still lack the most basic  access to electricity and modern cooking solutions. With every second  household in the Region depending on solid fuels for cooking, indoor  air pollution is a major health risk factor, particularly for women and  children. This flagship report urges the governments of EAP countries  to work simultaneously on two paths.    The first path is to achieve universal electricity access by  accelerating both grid and off-grid programs while employing  appropriate policies and innovative technical solutions to reduce  costs, improve reliability, and provide timely service to all EAP  households. The second path calls for a major push to increase access  to clean cooking fuels (natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, and  biogas) and to advanced cooking stoves, particularly for biomass in  poor rural areas.    Both of these paths are affordable. The combined investments  required for universal access to modern energy in the EAP Region are  estimated at US$78 billion over the next 2 decades. This amount is  US$32 billion more than the amount required to maintain the  “business-as-usual” scenario over the same period. Although  the annual incremental investment will be a small fraction of the  Regional GDP, most EAP countries will require significant support from  donors and multilateral institutions to reach the goal of universal  access to modern energy by 2030.

One Goal, Two Paths: Achieving Universal Access to Modern Energy in East Asia and Pacific PDF

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