Not Too Much, Not Too Little: A Goldilocks Approach to Sustainable, Universal Electricity Access in Sub-Saharan Africa

Santos J. Díaz-Pastor, Yang Liu and Ignacio J. Pérez-Arriaga

No 11439, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper proposes a replicable regulatory and financial framework to achieve universal electricity access as a core component of a just energy transition in Sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that universal access is feasible under realistic constraints when electrification planning, tariff regulation, and capital mobilization are designed as one coherent system rather than separate workstreams. The analysis rests on a computational, multi-period financial model that integrates individual interacting sub-models for every actor in the distribution segment. Versions of the same overall approach are applied to three countries, spanning different starting points and sector structures. Uganda provides the reference implementation in the wake of an expiring private distribution concession; Zambia recalibrates the same logic to a distressed national utility and a thin domestic revenue base; and Madagascar—where the framework is already being applied—shows it moving from design to district-scale delivery in the lowest electricity access setting of the three. The central mechanism is an integrated national planning, regulatory, business, and financing architecture that coordinates grid extension, mini-grids, and stand-alone systems within a single distribution-level financial plan. The framework separates two gaps that are routinely mixed—the viability gap, the recurring shortfall between affordable tariff revenues and the regulated cost of service, and the financing needs, the timing mismatch between front-loaded investment and gradual cost recovery—and shows that they each call for a distinct instrument. The evidence indicates that universal access can be reached without permanent reliance on external grants, and that extending the access horizon rather than compressing investment improves feasibility while still reaching everyone—so that the design becomes a problem of finding an electrification target year, a pattern of overall subsidy, and tariffs that are just right, each neither too much nor too little. The paper reframes universal access as a challenge of cost allocation and institutional design, showing that affordability, inclusion, and financial sustainability are not competing objectives once electrification is designed as one system.

Date: 2026-08-31
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