The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook first constructed a database on electrification rates for WEO-2002. We have updated this database once again for WEO-2013, showing detailed data on urban and rural electrification.
The general paucity of data on electricity access means that it must be gathered through a combination of sources, including: IEA energy statistics; a network of contacts spanning governments, multilateral development banks and country-level representatives of various international organisations; and, other publicly available statistics, such as US Agency for International Development (USAID) supported DHS survey data, the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC) statistical publications, and data from national statistics agencies. In the small number of cases where no data could be provided through these channels other sources were used. If electricity access data for 2011 was not available, data for the latest available year was used.