INSIGHTS ON THE NEXUS OF IDEAS PERTAINING TO ENERGY POVERTY & ENERGY ACCESS IN GHANA

Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast, is located in West Africa and is sandwiched between Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Burkina Faso, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea on the west, east, north and south respectively with a population of about 32million according to the 2020 World Population Review. Despite the strides made by the government to make energy affordable and accessible to its populace, there still is a great percentage of the population that lack regular and reliable energy access and are thus energy poor (Merem et al. 2018). This can be attributed to a wide range of reasons which would be explored in this essay. Energy poverty according to Middlemiss & Gillard (2015) is multidimensional in that, it is made up of a nexus of contributing elements which may be of human, material, policy-related, non-human or abstract origins. It is also experienced differently by different people in varied circumstances. This essay seeks to provide a snapshot of the state of energy access in Ghana, initial energy policy frameworks designed, interventions that have been developed, future plans of the government as well as challenges and opportunities that can be efficiently harnessed to ensure that the issue of energy poverty becomes a thing of the past.