43 and building connection charges in general tariffs of all—and especially high‐consumption consumers in all sectors—would help. In easing payment terms, attention should be paid to balancing tariffs and monthly installments for connection charges, because the combined effect could make monthly payments unaffordable.

- Utilities can do more to stamp out corruption and eliminate bribe payments demanded by their employees. In the two surveys where grid‐connected households were asked if they had paid a bribe to get connection, many replied “yes.” Bribes for connection further encourage multiple connections.

- Lifeline rates for blocks in the vicinity of 30–50 kWh a month may help strike a balance between affordability on the one hand and utility financial viability on the other. The first block of 25 kWh or less per month in some countries seems too small. If the country has a single schedule of a single block, progressive tariffs may be considered. For full benefits to be reaped, however, households need to be individually and accurately metered.

- Prepaid meters help low‐income households. The ability to pay in small increments when cash is earned, and not having to face the prospect of disconnection and a high reconnection charge, help especially the poor. However, electricity services are unreliable—in every one of the seven countries in which households were asked about service quality, blackouts were common—and this could mean that prepaid customers pay in advance for electricity they cannot get when needed. For this reason, it may be unfair to mandate prepaid metering on all customers.

- Consideration may be given to basing lifeline rates on a moving average of consumption over several months. Volume‐differentiated tariffs with a large increase in unit price from the first to the second block in particular may pose financial hardships for the poor if they are applied strictly on monthly consumption. To address this concern, in Cape Town, South Africa, free electricity is based on monthly consumption averaged over the past 12 months. Using moving averages and issuing warning messages in advance to customers as they approach the limit are two ways of alleviating such hardships.

- High appliance efficiency further helps reduce monthly bills. Recent advances in energy efficiency improvement are enabling households to meet basic electricity needs for as little as 15 kWh a month. For example, using four light‐emitting diode light bulbs of 800 lumens each for four hours a day, charging a cell phone, running a large fan for five hours a day, and watching one small efficient television for three hours a day consume about 15 kWh over a month. That said, light‐emitting diode light bulbs and other efficient appliances are relatively expensive, making it difficult for the poor to pay the upfront costs—one of the main reasons energy is more expensive for the poor than for the rich, exacerbating energy poverty. Financial assistance may be needed.

- For gender equality, helping the poor is likely to go a long way in helping female‐headed households. Once both per capita and total household expenditures are accounted for, there is little evidence that female‐headed households are disadvantaged with respect to electricity use, except in urban Ghana and Togo. That said, these are preliminary findings, and the gender dimension should be investigated further to see how robust this finding is.

Utilities can take steps to provide more targeted assistance to low‐income households without increasing their deficits markedly:

- Rolling out prepaid meters helps utilities. Utilities are assured of prompt payment for every kWh consumed.