U. N. Secretary. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Were delighted to have you both. So, let me start with you, if i may, doctor. Could you give us a global snapshot of Energy Poverty, where things stand, what populations are affected and what kind of repercussions are for gender equity and employment in the areas of the world that are most affected. Thanks again for having us. I think to just talk about what the Rockefeller Foundation has done and under the leadership of secretary munoz is looking at how we can end this Global Partnership and Energy Poverty. And as you ask, and rightly so, what is the global landscape. Let me start with my own continent. Africa accounts for only 2. 3 of the 270,000 hours of electricity generated. Asia is only 7. 8 . Its africa but also south and central america, its 4. 9 . When you look at those three, africa, 3. 2 , india, 5. 8 , and south and Central Africa america are just 4. 9 , you see theres still large swaths of the global space that is energy poor. When we talk about it, and lets relate it a little bit to the covid crisis, and i think thats one of the reasons why the Rockefeller Foundation and Harvard University wanted to do this together, as many others were on this commission, was to say, you know, one of the things that the covid pandemic has shown us is if we dont have energy, we cant even solve the health crises. On the continent we have local hospitals which dont have enough access to energy. So universal access is a critical part of what were considering as part of the puzzle for ending Energy Poverty. That means essentially looking at the whole stream of how you do both transmission and distribution. One of the things we have seen in this supply chain is there is a force line in the distribution piece of the puzzle. So, a lot of the work that secretary munoz has championshiped has been around what we can do with this framework. We he essentially say how do you bring the whole system, link the generation, link the transmission to the distribution and ensure we can get to the last mile. Because low Energy Consumption across the globe cannot give us the kind of building forward better we are looking for. We need less than 20 of india and less than 5 of china has access in the rural areas to sustainable, affordable electricity. So, this is, i think, a global concern and essentially what were trying to understand is how one can do it in a way that particularly crowds in the private sector, the Public Sector and ensures we have the way to do it in a way that is sustainable. Before we move onto secretary munoz, which ill do in a second, ill ask about the peoples lives. Is this a big rural, urban divide . Are we talking about people cooking with wood . How does it affect gender . I would like to get a sense of the personal impact before we move onto secretary munoz. Im actually glad you asked that question because we have 23 million women across the world, not just in africa but across the world who actually die from respiratory diseases every year because theyre using poor cooking devices. Thats the energy linkage. It is a rural urban divide as well, many in the african countries, same is true for south america and the same is true for south asia. The subcommittees have 70 more access to energy. And the women in particular. In is where were also looking at an inclusive and Sustainable Design for ending Energy Poverty, which ensures we can protect the trees, for example. Theres a lot of work to see how we can restore our greener environment. You can do that and ensure that will be sustainable if women still need to go out and look for wood to cook. I think theres a whole other conversation. Im sure that secretary munoz will bring that in with gas and how we can do better and cleaner cooking stoves. Lets talk turn to you, secretary. Youre one of the cochairs of the Global Commission to end Energy Poverty. Could you tell us how the commission was formed, who the commissioners are, and weve been talking about the dwoopg work. Yes, francis. Let me first make a couple of comments expanding on what she had said. As hinted at, we will be focusing on the Commission First on electricity. Well come back to that. But the cooking issue you have raised is so critical. There is a documentary recently out called switch on that i would recommend. It has a its a terribly emotional scene in terms of the medical requirements of women and children suffering the respiratory consequences of indoor biomass cooking. In fact, a doctor said all of his patients was women and children with respiratory illness. Until that is addressed and we cannot have womens empowerment. We cannot have them engaged in the economy until these issues are resolved. So thats very, very important. On the commission, to go back to that well, first of all, there are three coshares, myself with my hat at m. I. T. , where the principle analysis was done, but rod shaw, the ceo of the Rockefeller Foundation, is a coshare and rod emphasizes the Rockefeller Foundation supported this work because addressing Energy Poverty is a necessary condition for addressing poverty more generally. So, that really is the perspective that he brought to the table. The third coshare is the president of the African Development bank. Clearly, while subsa har yan africa is not the major focus, so it brings in the perspective of how are we going to bring together the capital to help the kinds of transitions we have. The commission was rounded out by many others i wouldnt go into by name, but, fwrampl, investors in infrastructure, but government and quasi government officials who will have enormous responsibilities, which well, perhaps, come back to, and a number of individuals who have long experience in, for example, in initiatives such as power africa, which was started in the Obama Administration to address the electricity and lighting needs in africa specifically. But youre also right that the Energy Access issue is not one just in developing countries. Clearly there is the major focus. Hundreds of millions of people without proper Energy Access. One could argue about a third of the global population without adequate Energy Services. Right here in the united states, frankly, if one goes to things by the native american lens, one finds a very, very disheartening lack of Energy Services in many cases. So, this is a big problem. Its absolutely critical. And i would just say as well, you mentioned briefly covid. When the commission started just over a year ago, i dont think any of us dreamed that today because of the covid crisis, we probably have more people without electricity access than we had a year ago. Because many who gained access, you know, these countries always catch the cold first when theres a global event. And the Economic Impact has led to many people not being able to afford any more, the access that was so hard won over these last years. Right. Doctor, youre on this commission and the goal is universal electricity access, as we said. Thats going to involve partnerships between policymakers, utilities, investors. What do those partnerships look like . How are you moving towards them . And what are the barriers in different parts of the world . What are you up against . We have done a couple were not up against as much as it is trying to see whether we can bring the right coalitions together. And i think first the coalition and commission is one of them. Secretary munoz has talksed about the fact we have the private sector, the Public Sector and a lot of sifl society with us. Actually, the academics as well. And i think for example a partnership we have with rescue africa which is under the operation and one of the also Global Investment for Sustainable Development group set up by the United Nations secretarygeneral, that brings together a very substantial group of private sector investors, millions of dollars, interested in looking for investment in Renewable Energy. When you look at again the african continent, only 2 of global new Renewable Energy capacity was installed in africa over the last ten years. For all the conversations we have about Renewable Energy, the cost of the drop in Renewable Energy and more investment, africa has only been able to attract 2 of that. One of the things were trying to do is understand what is it that is stopping or hindering those types of investments . A big part of it, and thats one of the things the commission talks about when they do the integrated development framework, the fact that the distribution, the utility companies, because of not the appropriate adjustments, and thats your conversation, what are we up against . Were up against the need for affordable Accessible Energy versus the need for financing that is also affordable to build energy. I think one of the issues were talking about is how can we do projects in local currency . When you do a hydroelectric power plant its financed in dollars but the rural citizens most often are paying for that energy in local currency that is also subject to the variations of Macro Economic, the covid crisis has led to many of our currencies depreciates and it becomes expensive. We need to be able to find some way of doing reflective cost and tariffs but to do that we need to move to more local currency financing of a lot of this investment were putting in place. Of course, the overall Macro Economic environment is but but another thing were doing and the commission has stressed thats very important is it is local technical assist abc. What were doing actually, primarily with the commission, is to launch what were calling the team energy africa, which is essentially bringing together all of the african industrial to say what can we do as a continent . There is team europe, and we are hoping we can create a cluster in africa that can respond to team europe when they come or respond to power africa when they come under the dfc and others to say, we have to do this in partnership. Probably when we do that, we can also then find local Insurance Companies on the continent that can buy down the cost of this investment. I think its a cluster of things. First you need to bring in continental producers. In india, we talked about the low access in india but because there are indian suppliers, captains of energy, the energy sector. We can see access is increasing at a much faster rate. We believe we should emulate Something Like that on the african continent. Just before i move on, i want to ask specifically, is the one area in africa, one small model where things are working well that youre trying to broaden . You know, the attraction of independent producers on the continent has done really well. Many, many countries that have started that, kenya, senegal, south africa has been the leader in this, we see a lot of progress, a lot of investment. Again, a project launched by the ifc is the solid power project which has been scaling solid. In zambia we have it, senegal, morocco. One thing we understood was standardization of these programs. You can standardize it, investors know what to expect, the countries know what to offer and it makes it much easier to close on those deals. Secretary, could you talk about the Data Analytics and other progress that could make a big difference in this area. Certainly, the Technology Progress in providing energy, particularly clean energy, has been very, very dramatic. Solar energy, wind energy, including the storage that one needs to be able to use the, for example, the solar energy at night as opposed to during the day. The rapid cost reductions here, i think, are going to provide dramatic opportunities to have support for african buildout quite rapidly of the new energy technologies. A couple of points i do want to emphasize. We have to recognize one of the pillars really of the commissions work has been that we cannot look at offgrid and onGrid Solutions as kind of two different things. We need the integration of on and off Grid Solutions because the issue, it isnt about ideology in terms of how one best to have distributed generation or the like. Its about universal access and the universal Access Solutions are going to have to be looked at in an integrated way with the combined urban and rural populations of these countries. Technology is going to allow that to happen more easily. I think actually its probably worth stating that just like everywhere in the world, the projections, democratic projections are for enormous urbanization in africa, so i think we need to not have everything looks like a nail because i have a hammer. We have multiple technologies, multiple ways of integrating them using i. T. You alluded to i. T. , for example. Using i. T. To really serve the population that needs universal access. In saying that, again, something you alluded to earlier, francis, maybe well come back to it, but the reality is, and frankly when i speak with africans who are very knowledgeable about the developments in energy that are needed, that would include vera, they all say that, look, we have to have in africa, subsaharan africa, real focus on industrial development, so thats going to require as well, certainly for some considerable period, more internal utilization in africa of the enormous natural gas finds that have been happening in both east and west africa. So i think we have to keep in mind the goals, Economic Development, universal access and, of course, as low carbon, a trajectory as can be as can be realized in putting together a coherent collusion. Again, universal access, integration of on and off grid, focus on development. And as vera said, creating financially viable systems to provide the electricity, the energy, not with a shortterm focus but with a longterm focus. All must come together. And it will be technology, but it will also be things like significant elevation and best practices, et cetera, in terms of regulation, without stable, predictable regulation, it would be hard for the loadserving entities we need to really put in the Capital Investment to serve the peoples needs. Just quickly, if you can. These are all big questions. Tell me what the private sector fits in here. How do we make sure they act in the interest of Broad Development rather than their own interest . Whats their role and how do you regulate their investment . Well, the private sector, first of all, theyre absolutely essential because otherwise it will be very hard to see the capital accumulation that one needs to realize the development that we are hoping for. Again, its no different in africa or anywhere else. If its private capital coming in, some certainty for a substantial period, call it 20 years, a concession being awarded, for example, with specific milestones for universal access, reliable access to electricity, that has to come. Frankly, and vera could comment on this probably more expertly than i, but looelts lets just say those two conditions are very uneven, at the moment, in subsaharan africa. I think we need to bring the best practices, which have been demonstrated in various places to bear. For example, one of the recommendations of the commission is to establish an African School of regulation. Maybe at one of the universities in africa, for example. And really bring cutting edge experience of regulation across the globe to bear so that there can be more uniformity. Uniformity across countries will also encourage other important developments such as Regional Power pools where several countries can come together regionally and provide more efficient, more reliable, more affordable electricity as a regional effort. Clearly, if you have different policies, different rules across boundaries, that becomes very, very difficult. So theres a lot to do, but by the way, were very encouraged in terms of progress towards this regulatory school, for example, of being founded. Well see. But its looking quite promising. Were getting a little short of time. I would like to be able to ask you a couple of questions that have been sent in by readers. Im going to read this. This is barrymore from virginia who asked, how would you characterize chinas influence and impact in africa . Thank you for that question. And let me use the question to answer a little bit of what were talking about. Africa has decide you know, were going to go to net zero. However, between now and getting to net zero, africa still needs to grow. We need to ensure our economies have the right ways to grow. One area china has abundant material for raw material is gas and hydro. Hydro china is one of the leading builders of hydropower. I think one of the things were doing is working with china, the french, the americans to ensure we do build the right kinds of hydropower plants on the continent, but also we begin to i think we have a little interruption in our connection which were trying to rebuild at the moment, so please stay with us. Francis, maybe i could inject a little comment on china as were waiting please do. Waiting for vera to come back. And i think one of the issues is that i think as many countries, vera men