European Union

By Sudiksha Battineni
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 25 2025 (IPS)

Chad is one of the most extreme examples of energy poverty, with just 10% of the population connected to electricity, a rural electrification rate below 2%, and a global per capita electricity consumption rate that’s just 18% of the global average. This hinders its economic development.

So does its rapid population growth. Chad has one of the world’s fastest-growing populations; its 21 million people are expected to more than triple by the end of the century. Chad’s low educational attainment, with 38% of girls completed primary school, coupled with high rates of child marriage and fertility also pose problems for its development.

The World Bank is working on some of these fronts, including announcing a new agreement that will strengthen Chad’s education system, and launching Mission 300 in partnership with the African Development Bank to connect 300 million more people in Africa to electricity by 2030.

But these issues are all linked and can only be solved when they aren’t siloed. Affordable, clean energy for all is Sustainable Development Goal 7, which also relates to SDG 5, gender equity and women’s empowerment, which is preerequisite for lowering fertility and slowing population growth. Energy access is also interwoven with education (SDG 4), ending poverty (SDG 1), promoting health (SDG 3), fighting climate change (SDG 13), and the entire SDG agenda.

For example, energy poverty keeps hospitals from storing vaccines, people from starting businesses, and children from studying after sunset. It exacerbates the very inequalities that education seeks to combat, particularly gender inequality.

As a holistic way to redress it, women activists in energy-poor countries are promoting “feminist electrification” — explicitly designing energy investments to empower women as economic actors and consumers. This could include integrating family planning into energy rollouts, investing in women’s education, training, and leadership development, and including them in energy planning.

This perspective is currently lacking in Mission 300’s “energy compacts” — voluntary commitments outlining how countries, companies, and organizations affordable and clean energy for all. Chad’s National Energy Compact calls for adding connections for over 14 million more people, raising electricity access from 11% to 90% by 2030, achieving 46% access to clean cooking solutions by 2030, boosting renewables to 30% of total electricity generation, adding 866 MW of new capacity, and mobilizing $650.3 million in total investments, about one-third from the private sector.

The Compact addresses infrastructure, private sector engagement, and regulatory reform, but overlooks critical human dimensions of energy, including its intersection with gender equality and population growth.

For example, Chad’s high fertility rates result in large household sizes and increased energy demand for cooking, lighting, and other activities. Women manage most of the domestic energy needs, yet they generally aren’t part of energy decision-making.

Nearly all Chad’s rural households rely on wood for cooking, which devastates forests and exposes families to indoor air pollution that contributes to respiratory diseases. Clean cooking solutions, like LPG stoves or electric induction cookers, could transform these risks. But only if women can access, afford, and trust them.

Unmet family planning needs are accelerating Chad’s rapid population growth, which threatens to swamp any gains in energy access. With little education and few economic options, 61% of girls get married by age 18, part of the reason for Chad’s sky-high total fertility rate of 5.14 births per woman.

Fast population growth accelerates urban sprawl, drives deforestation for charcoal production, and makes it harder to extend grid infrastructure to meet energy demands.

For all these reasons, family planning and energy planning are connected. Chad can’t meet its Energy Compact targets without also setting and meeting goals for family planning and empowering women.

Feminist electrification would provide women with vocational training in solar installation, electric stove sales and maintenance, ensuring that clean energy solutions reach households while creating jobs for women and opportunity for self-determination, which universally tends to lower fertility rates. It would further the Compact’s goals of expanding decentralized renewable energy and fostering private investment by extending them to women.

Chad should revise its National Energy Compact to include a specific gender and demographics integration plan. It should require gender impact assessments for all new energy projects, track energy access outcomes by gender and income, and link electrification operations directly with family planning, health, and women’s economic empowerment initiatives.

Energy access is not just about how many kilowatts get generated; it’s about the human realities behind the numbers, and who shares the benefits of electricity. True access means that a woman in rural Chad can flip a switch, cook cleanly, breathe safely, and choose the size of her family.

That’s the kind of power Africa needs.

Sudiksha Battineni is a rising sophomore at Duke University and a Stanback Fellow at the Population Institute

IPS UN Bureau

 

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