More than one third of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to electricity, the head of a top energy industry group said Wednesday. "Electrification seems to have taken a back seat while governments focus on combating disease and poverty with the meager budgets they have.
More than one third of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to electricity, the head of a top energy industry group said Wednesday.

"Electrification seems to have taken a back seat while governments focus on combating disease and poverty with the meager budgets they have. We have more than a one-third of the regional population living without electricity," said Latsoucabe Fall, head of the World Energy Council.

"Our collective challenge is to fight the divide between the haves and the have-nots, narrow the energy gap and achieve the best balance in a way that is cost-effective," Fall told an energy conference in Johannesburg .

Ethiopia , Nigeria and Congo are some of the countries with the least access to electricity.

Fall said Africa 's climate made it an ideal location for solar and wind power, but lack of resources hindered their development.

"With a continental population of about a billion, demand for energy will continue to rise in Africa ," he said, adding that 60% of the overall African population lived in the dark.

The two day conference which is attended by energy industry experts from the continent and abroad is discussing Africa 's energy supply.

South Africa , the continent's largest consumer of electricity, is currently upgrading its infrastructure to cope with the increasing demand for its mainly coal-generated electricity.

Regulators in South Africa agreed Wednesday to allow the power company Eskom to double its tariffs over three years to help finance a 385 billion rand ($50.2 billion) expansion.
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