Program Impact as of December 2017

Overall Impact
28,783,3661	People in Africa who are currently meeting their basic electricity needs through off-grid solar products meeting Lighting Global Quality Standards
16,614,863	Quality-verified solar lighting products sold through local distributorships in Africa since 2009
3,680,000	Metric Tons of GHGs avoided in Africa; the CO2–equivalent of taking 788,009 cars off the road for a year
Access to Finance (as of July 2016)
$20m	Foreign exchange credit facility established by the Development Bank of Ethiopia with World Bank funds to support import of qualifying products, including quality-verified solar lanterns
1,000,000	Ethiopians gained access to modern energy services through this credit facility
800,000	Quality-verified products imported into Ethiopia through this credit facility
11	MFIs (4 in Kenya, 5 in Ethiopia, 2 in Nigeria), and KIVA – the crowd-funding platform, providing consumers micro-loans for quality-verified off-grid lighting and energy products
Market Intelligence (as of January 2018)
30	Market Insight reports published, facilitating entry into new markets or mobilization of investors
4	Market Trends reports published, analyzing the off-grid products market across Africa, including the 2018 Global Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report
Quality Standards (as of July 2016)
Global	Lighting Global Quality Standards adopted as international standard for solar lighting products by the International Electrotechnical Commission as IEC Tech Spec 62257-9-5
255	Solar lighting and energy products tested against the Lighting Global Quality Standards to date
101	Solar lighting and energy products (10W – 100W) currently meet the Lighting Global Quality Standards
Partnering with Governments (as of July 2016)
8	Countries integrated Lighting Africa activities into their World Bank-financed energy access projects: Burkina Faso, Mali, Liberia, DRC, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Rwanda.
Policy (as of July 2016)
3	National governments (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania) and ECOWAS have or are in the process of adopting national standards for off-grid solar products that are harmonized with Lighting Global Quality Standards
1	Institution, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) requires solar lighting products to meet IEC Technical Specification 62257-9-5 to qualify for carbon financing (CDM).

Note: Lighting Africa has contributed towards these results through its market development activities implemented in collaboration with various intermediaries across the supply chain, development partners and financial institutions; most importantly, in conjunction with manufacturers of solar lighting products and their distribution partners in Africa.  

¹ ‘Basic electricity needs’ are defined according to the Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) as providing light for at least 1,000 lumen-hours (lmhr) / day and sufficient energy to keep a well-used mobile phone operational. This result is based on products sold in the last 3 years only. Some of these users also enjoy additional energy services such as multiple light points or the ability to power a TV or a fan. We previously reported our impacts using a calculation favored by many in the industry: number of products sold x 5 (ave. household size), which would give a result of 83,074,315 people with access to a quality verified solar light.