Help us improve this section of the site. Can we get your feedback? Click here

DataBank

Metadata Glossary

CodeEG.ELC.ACCS.UR.ZS
Indicator NameAccess to electricity, urban (% of urban population)
Long definitionAccess to electricity, urban is the percentage of urban population with access to electricity.
SourceWorld Bank Global Electrification Database from "Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report" led jointly by the custodian agencies: the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO).
TopicEnvironment: Energy production & use
PeriodicityAnnual
Aggregation methodWeighted average
Statistical concept and methodologyData for access to electricity are collected among different sources: mostly data from nationally representative household surveys (including national censuses) were used. Survey sources include Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), Multi-Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), the World Health Survey (WHS), other nationally developed and implemented surveys, and various government agencies (for example, ministries of energy and utilities). Given the low frequency and the regional distribution of some surveys, a number of countries have gaps in available data. To develop the historical evolution and starting point of electrification rates, a simple modeling approach was adopted to fill in the missing data points - around 1990, around 2000, and around 2010. Therefore, a country can have a continuum of zero to three data points. There are 42 countries with zero data point and the weighted regional average was used as an estimate for electrification in each of the data periods. 170 countries have between one and three data points and missing data are estimated by using a model with region, country, and time variables. The model keeps the original observation if data is available for any of the time periods. This modeling approach allowed the estimation of electrification rates for 212 countries over these three time periods (Indicated as "Estimate"). Notation "Assumption" refers to the assumption of universal access in countries classified as developed by the United Nations. Data begins from the year in which the first survey data is available for each country.
License URLhttps://datacatalog.worldbank.org/public-licenses#cc-by
License TypeCC BY-4.0
^