Access to Electricity
Most of us living in wealthy countries are guilty of complaining about what are really just minor inconveniences in our lives. Whether it's traffic, the cost of housing, politics, or a variety of other things, it's good to be reminded from time to time that these are really just "first-world problems." I hope the following data from the World Bank do just that.
It's astonishing to think that in 2022, the same year ChatGPT was launched, so many people in the world didn't even have access to electricity. These are just the countries where less than half the population had electricity; there are many more countries with coverage less than 100%. Let this sink in for a minute - there are 22 countries in the modern world where the norm is to live without electricity. The next time you find yourself complaining about not being able to find your phone charger, or how terrible your internet service provider is, think about that.
The good news is, in almost all of these countries, the trend over the past few years is moving in the right direction.
This dumbbell chart shows the progress made for each country over the 2014 - 2022 period. The red-colored dots represent the values for 2014 and the yellow/orange dots represent the 2022 values. The countries are listed in ascending order - those with the lowest rates of progress appear at the top, while the countries with the highest progress rates are at the bottom. The chart shows that countries like Uganda, Liberia, and Tanzania all made significant progress, increasing electricity access by more than 20 percentage points. The average for all of these countries was an increase by just over 10 percentage points. Somalia was the only country that had less electricity access in 2022 compared to 2014.
About the Data
The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank's primary collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available. The WDI includes national, regional, and global data on hundreds of indicators across a variety of interesting topics.