ABSTRACT
Access to affordable, modern energy services is a prerequisite for sustainable development and poverty alleviation and, more specifically, for achieving each of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 1 Yet there are currently two billion people worldwide, mainly in rural areas of developing countries, who lack access to modern forms of energy. This figure is roughly the same as in 1970, as population growth has in these areas offset the achievement of bringing electricity and other modern energies to over a billion people during this period. In the coming decades, the world will also face the challenge of meeting the energy needs of those living in urban areas – where the most population growth is expected to occur. Together this has been called the 2+2 billion problem, that is meeting the energy needs of those presently outside the modern economic system, and providing for the added population to be expected – virtually all of whom will be in the South and in the cities (UNDP, 2000; ICS, 2002).
