Access to affordable and reliable energy enables growth of local economies. And demand for energy ensures feasibility of business models for decentralised energy solutions such as mini-grids.

There are still 2.8 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean cooking solutions, a figure that has remained stubbornly high. This persistent gap shows that despite huge efforts, cookstove initiatives have largely failed to reach scale. Among other issues, access to affordable finance is still an immense barrier.

The off-grid energy sector continues to have a tremendous funding gap. Aggregation has great potential to channel finance into the millions of off-grid projects and products that will make universal energy access by 2030 possible.

For communities in rural Africa to thrive, energy services must be affordable and reliable. But this is not enough.