Data story: How many Ugandan homes still lack grid power, safe water or a decent toilet?
75% of Uganda's homes are not lit by grid electricity
Of 10.7 million households in Uganda, 25.3% light their homes mainly with grid power and 28.1% with solar. 81.1% drink from an improved water source, but only 43.6% use an improved toilet and 6.7% have none.
- Grid electricity: 25.3% (8.0 million homes without it)
- Improved water: 81.1% (2.0 million homes without it)
- Improved toilet: 43.6% (6.7% have no toilet)
- Mosquito net: 87.2% (households owning one)
What comes next: Keeping the lights on for a growing population
If households grow as fast as the population, Uganda will have about 12.8 million households in 2030. Just holding grid lighting at 25.3% takes about 86,043 new grid homes a year; lighting every home from the grid by 2030 would take about 1.6 million a year. Since 2014 the grid share rose from 15.5% to 25.3%, about 1.0 points a year; at that pace half of homes are grid-lit around 2049 and every home around 2099.
How this was worked out: Households are assumed to grow at the population's 2014-2024 rate (2.9% a year) with today's average size. Lighting is the census question on main source of lighting, not every connection.
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Source: Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), National Population and Housing Census 2024 (final results, drill-down tables). Published on Pearl Insights (https://pearl-insights.org), an independent civic data platform, not an official government website.