2025 Tracking SDG7 Report

The Energy Progress Report

Overview

Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025 finds that almost 92% of the world’s population now has basic access to electricity. Although this is an improvement since 2022, which saw the number of people without basic access decrease for the first time in a decade, over 666 million people remain without access, indicating that the current rate is insufficient to reach universal access by 2030. Clean cooking access is progressing but below the rates of progress seen in the 2010s, as efforts remain hobbled by setbacks during the Covid-19 pandemic, following energy price shocks, and debt crises.

The latest edition of the annual report that tracks progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 highlights the role of distributed renewable energy (a combination of mini-grid and off-grid solar systems) to accelerate access, since the population remaining unconnected lives mostly in remote, lower-income, and fragile areas. Cost-effective and rapidly scalable, decentralised solutions are able to reach communities in such rural areas.

About the report

This report is published by the SDG 7 custodian agencies, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO) and aims to provide the international community with a global dashboard to register progress on energy access, energy efficiency, renewable energy and international cooperation to advance SDG 7.

WHO Team
Air Quality, Energy and Health (AQE), Environment, Climate Change and Health (ECH)
Editors
IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank & WHO
Number of pages
188
Copyright
© IEA, IRENA, UN, World Bank, and WHO, 2025