Webinar: Why the ‘where’ and ‘how’ matters for impact evaluations in electricity access research: Evidence from a systematic review

March 05, 2020 | 10:00-11:00 am EST

Roughly a billion people around the world still lack access to electricity. In order to address this challenge and to meet Sustainable Development Goal 7 “to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” annual investments of more than a trillion US$ are needed according to UN estimates. While it is typically argued that electricity access improves the livelihoods of local, mostly rural communities and fast-tracks socio-economic development, it is not clear what we really know about the impacts from electricity access. For that reason, we conducted a systematic review of existing impact evaluation studies. And the results we found were shocking: not only are there only exceptionally few impact evaluation studies that use statistical tests, but these studies are also plagued by geographic bias and produce results that depend heavily on the method that is used. These findings make us think hard about our current understanding of electricity access research and what advice we can give to policymakers.

To attend the Webinar, register here.