Local Electricity Access Programme - LEAP

DATE20.04.2021
AUTHORProf. Dr. Peter Eigen

According to United Nations estimates, despite recent progress and numerous international support initiatives in the field of global electrification, around 790 million people around the world still have no access to electricity. Around 72 % of these people live in sub-Saharan Africa and rely mostly on traditional fuels that are wasteful, unreliable, expensive and unhealthy. They also slow down social and economic development and contribute to environmental problems and climate change. Kofi Annan pointed out in his lead report for the Africa Progress Panel that indoor air pollution alone causes the premature deaths of four million people worldwide each year, with some 600,000 people dying prematurely for this reason in Africa alone; his successor organisation Africa Progress Group runs LEAP with the Berlin Governance Platform, Berlin.

LEAP is intended to help improve access to electricity for many people by improving the local framework conditions for off-grid access. In parallel to the accompanying implementation of concrete projects, governance parameters are to be developed so that first-hand experience and requirements can be taken into account at local level. In the long term, LEAP plans to expand to the whole of rural Africa and evaluate the most promising strategies from these pilot projects.