Energy is key for achieving sustainable development. Early in 1992, the Earth Summit pointed that current levels of energy consumption and production are not sustainable; It called international donors to support developing countries in implementing national energy programmes in order to achieve widespread use of energy-saving and renewable energy technologies, particularly the use of solar, wind, biomass and hydro sources, and to provide access to research and development results to increase energy-use efficiency levels in human settlements. Twenty years later, in Rio+20, the critical role played by energy in the development process was once again affirmed that access to sustainable modern energy services contributes to poverty eradication, saves lives, improves health and helps provide basic human needs. Yet around 1.3 billion people in the world has no access to energy services and the Arab region shows variations between countries and within countries between rural and urban areas. Where electrification rates are high, there still remains problems in terms of energy supply, and quality of the energy.

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