9th edition of the Science Summit around the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA78) by ANS...

**Introduction and aims** This panel will present the potential for the ANSOLE Energy Compact that promotes multi-level capacity building (Africa-wide, national, university, and community-level action) to address the extremely urgent need to accelerate access to and effective uses of affordable and reliable energy by communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has nearly 600 million people without access to electricity. It is urgent to speed up electrification as climate change intensifies and AI and other technological advances accelerate, widening the divides between the haves and the left behind, fueling rising costs of instability. Most alarming is that IEA forecasts show that based on present trends, nearly 600 million will still not have access to electricity by 2030 and be poorly equipped to address the worsening impacts of climate change. While the heart of the challenge is Sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 50% of the population has access to electricity, even coun