-
The False Choice in African Energy Access: Why the Sector Must Balance the Needs of Households and Businesses — And How it Can Electrify Both
Energy access is essential to Africa’s development. But as Alba Topulli at CLASP and Todd Moss at the Energy for Growth Hub argue, progress has stalled over a false choice: Should the continent prioritize solar home systems that bring basic access to households — or should it invest in making electricity cheaper and more reliable for businesses, to power job creation and economic growth? They explain why the energy access sector must resist this perceived trade-off, and propose four key principles that can allow Africa to accomplish both of these goals.
- Categories
- Energy
-
Press Release: CrossBoundary Access and Anka Close a Landmark Acquisition in Madagascar, Reinforcing Momentum Toward Investment in Mini-Grids for Energy Access Across Sub Saharan Africa
This acquisition marks the first exit of early-stage investors from an operational mini-grid platform in Madagascar, demonstrating the growing bankability of the mini-grid asset class and developers.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2025: Announcing the Winners of Our Annual Contest
We've counted the votes in NextBillion’s “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest, an annual tradition since 2012. The three winners are listed in this article. Congratulations to these guest writers, and to the other contestants in the contest, whose insights have clearly resonated with our readers this past year. And thank you to everyone who voted — and everyone who read and wrote for NextBillion in 2025. Best wishes for the new year!
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing, Technology, Telecommunications
-
Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2025: Vote for Your Favorites by Jan. 4
NextBillion’s “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest has been an annual tradition since 2012. As we do each December, we’ve highlighted 12 of our most-read articles from the past year: You can find links to them in this article, or on the homepage below. We invite you to read them and vote for the ones that influenced your thinking the most. You can vote up to once per hour between today (Dec. 19) and 11:59 pm EST on Jan. 4. We thank you for your support and engagement over these past 20 years, and we wish you a happy and prosperous 2026.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Finance, Investing, Technology, Telecommunications, Transportation
-
Financing Off-Grid Solar: A Pioneering Provider in Honduras Shows the Impact of Diversified Funding
Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and many of its most remote regions remain unserved by the electricity grid. Richenda Van Leeuwen at Hummingbird Green Solutions and Richard Stuebi and Jesse Colman at Boston University explore how Soluz Honduras is bringing freezers and other solar products to these markets by leveraging a variety of different financing models — an approach that shows how diversified funding can enable businesses to serve even the hardest-to-reach areas and the poorest of customers.
-
Pay-As-You-Go Solar Kit Sales Surge 54% in Sub-Saharan Africa in H1 2025
The report shows that PAYGo sales, where customers purchase solar kits in installments, surpassed cash sales for the first time since 2018.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
From Energy Access to Economic Empowerment: Workable Models for Financing a Just Transition in Emerging Markets
Today 2.1 billion people live without clean cooking fuels and technologies, and over 660 million people lack electricity access. Yet as Anthony Osijo at Bboxx points out, as global conversations largely focus on decarbonizing energy resources to combat climate change, these millions of households still cannot access essential products and services the rest of the world takes for granted. He argues that emerging markets can't simply be left in the dark because their kerosene lamps and diesel generators aren’t environmentally viable, especially if they lack access to suitable alternatives. He explores ways to finance and deliver a just climate transition — while also eradicating energy poverty.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
-
Turning Failure into Fuel: An Emerging Learning Platform Aims to Bring the Hidden Challenges in Humanitarian Energy to Light
The humanitarian energy sector is eager to learn from success. But according to clean cooking and energy access researchers Nazifa Rafa, Tash Perros, Iwona Bisaga and Ronan Ferguson, its failures are usually buried in reports or quietly brushed aside, and there's often a disconnect between what’s documented in impact reports and what practitioners experience on the ground. They argue that this dynamic is unsustainable in a sector with high risks, urgent needs and shrinking funding. In response, they share an emerging solution: the Humanitarian Energy Learning Platform, a centralized, inter-donor learning system designed to highlight what’s going wrong in humanitarian energy access, and how practitioners can systematically learn from it.
- Categories
- Energy
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.