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Energy Safety Nets:Using social assistance mechanisms to close affordbility gaps for the poor

The Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) mandate to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy services for all, means that even the poorest and most disadvantaged in society should have access to modern energy by 2030. Energy Safety Net (ESN) is an umbrella term for government-led approaches to support very poor and vulnerable people to access essential modern energy services, defined as electricity and clean fuels and technologies for cooking, by closing the affordability gap between market prices and what poor customers can afford to pay. Energy Safety Nets: Using Social Assistance Mechanisms to Close Affordability Gaps for the Poor synthesizes lessons learned from six country case studies from Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya and Mexico, and offers recommendations for the future design of Energy Safety Nets.