Access to Energy: the Requisite for the United Nations Development Goals An estimated 18 million teachers are needed

to achieve universal primary education by 2015. The United Nations (UN) has candidly stated that it will not be able to meet this Millennium Development Goal (MDG) due to limited funds and human capital. But Joseph Kaifala, a 2L and director of an educational non-profit, pointed out that technology can help the UN achieve its goal eventually. Through interactive video applications, like Skype, teachers around the world can conduct virtual lectures to the millions of children in developing countries who disproportionately lack education. For this to happen, however, the villages and cities where these children live must have access to electricity. The problem is that many of them dont. Lack of access to energy does not solely thwart the UNs educational MDG, it hinders the remaining seven MDGs as well. The MDGs include: ending extreme poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability. Implicit in all these goals is the requisite of access to affordable, clean, and reliable energy. Yet global energy infrastructure has failed to meet the needs of the poor. According to the International Energy Agency, 1.4 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity, and 99 percent of those people reside in developing nations. Intersecting that population is the 2.4 billion people who rely on traditional biomass fuels for cooking and heating. These biomass fuels include wood, charcoal, kerosene and dung, and are considered harmful to health and the environment. Studies have shown a correlation between access to energy and human development. Countries with low human development, such as most of the countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, have the highest percentage of persons without access to electricity. Alike, is the correlation between access to energy and the GDP. Countries with the lowest GDP disproportionally lack energy access. In reducing poverty and hunger, access to electricity can optimize agriculture activity, enable clean drinking water, and boost the local economy by developing businesses and facilitating a culture of consumerism. In combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, electricity access can provide health facilities with power to refrigerate vaccines and optimize other treatment capabilities, which can also improve maternal health. Modern energy services can aid the goal of gender equality among the 2.4 billion people who still use traditional biomass fuel. Typically, woman and female youth are tasked with the drudgery of scavenging for wood and other biomass. They spend an excess amount of time collecting the fuel and are, at times, exposed to risk of assault. Additionally, women and young children are disproportionally exposed to indoor air pollution that results from indoor cooking and heating. The World Health Organization considers indoor air pollution a top health risk and says that it accounts for 1.6 million deaths annually. With access to electricity, women can avoid these inequalities. Although the progress of developing countries consists of intricate rubrics, the importance of advancing affordable energy access to all should not be understated. Energy is essential to the economy, human development, communication and governance. In order for the UN to achieve its MDGs it needs to provide a strategic plan for bringing energy access to the poor.