SDG 7 — Affordable and Clean Energy
The UN goal to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030.
SDG 7 Affordable & Clean EnergyWhat is it?
SDG 7 is the seventh UN Sustainable Development Goal, committing the world to universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy — including electricity and clean cooking.
Why does it matter?
Energy access underpins health, education, gender equality, and economic opportunity, and the clean-cooking target in particular is badly off track.
How does it work?
The goal sets measurable targets — electricity access, clean cooking access, renewable share, and efficiency — tracked annually by a multi-agency custodian group.
Who benefits?
The roughly 675 million people without electricity and 2 billion without clean cooking stand to gain the most from progress toward the goal.
Who may be disadvantaged?
Poorly designed transitions can raise energy costs or displace informal fuel economies; without equity safeguards, the poorest can be left behind even as averages improve.
What evidence exists?
The annual Tracking SDG 7 report documents progress and gaps; it consistently shows the clean-cooking target lagging far behind electricity access.
What tradeoffs exist?
Balancing affordability, reliability, and sustainability is genuinely hard — the cheapest fastest options are not always the cleanest, and vice versa.
Common misconceptions
SDG 7 is not only about electricity; clean cooking is an equally central and far more neglected part of the goal.
What you can do next
Explore how it links to water access through SDG 6 as part of an integrated development agenda.