The world has entered a new era of energy investment.
Governments are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize electricity grids, scale renewable energy, expand battery storage and strengthen critical infrastructure. Yet while the global energy transition is accelerating, hundreds of millions of people still live without something many take for granted: reliable electricity.
Bridging that divide has become the defining mission of Damilola Ogunbiyi.
As chief executive officer of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), the United Nations secretary-general’s special representative for Sustainable Energy for All and co-chair of UN-Energy, Ogunbiyi has become one of the world’s most influential voices connecting climate ambition with economic development. Her work is grounded in a simple but increasingly consequential principle: the energy transition will only succeed if it improves lives everywhere—not only in the world’s wealthiest economies.
That message carries particular weight today. Around the world, governments are making historic investments in clean energy infrastructure, while investors are directing unprecedented amounts of capital toward renewable power, battery storage and grid modernization. At the same time, the latest Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report estimates that 655 million people still live without electricity, with the vast majority residing in sub-Saharan Africa.
For Damilola Ogunbiyi, those two realities cannot be separated.
Turning Energy Access Into Economic Strategy
Unlike many international leaders who arrived through diplomacy or academia, Ogunbiyi built her reputation delivering energy projects on the ground.
As the first woman to lead both the Lagos State Electricity Board and Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency, she worked to expand reliable electricity to schools, hospitals, businesses and rural communities. She also helped advance the Nigeria Electrification Project, a $550 million initiative supported by the World Bank and African Development Bank that demonstrated how public institutions and private capital could work together to expand access to electricity.
That experience continues to shape her leadership today.
Rather than viewing energy access primarily as a development challenge, Ogunbiyi increasingly frames it as an economic one. Reliable electricity enables businesses to grow, strengthens healthcare systems, improves educational outcomes, attracts investment and creates the conditions for long-term prosperity. Without dependable power, many of the broader ambitions surrounding sustainable development remain difficult to achieve.
It is an approach that has resonated across governments, multilateral institutions and development finance organizations seeking practical pathways to expand energy access while accelerating decarbonization.
Connecting Global Ambition With Practical Delivery
Under Ogunbiyi’s leadership, SEforALL has increasingly positioned itself as a bridge between international ambition and national implementation.
The organization works with governments to develop integrated energy strategies, supports financing mechanisms capable of attracting private investment and helps coordinate the UN Energy Compacts, voluntary commitments through which countries, financial institutions and businesses commit to accelerating progress toward universal sustainable energy.
By September 2025, those compacts represented approximately $1.6 trillion in financial commitments, with $284 billion already mobilized or deployed.
SEforALL has also become an important partner in Mission 300, the World Bank Group and African Development Bank initiative seeking to connect 300 million people across sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030. Earlier this year, the initiative reported that more than 50 million people had already gained access through projects spanning 40 African countries.
While significant, Ogunbiyi has consistently emphasized that the pace of progress must increase if universal energy access is to become a reality before the end of the decade.
Ensuring the Transition Is Truly Inclusive
Damilola Ogunbiyi has also helped elevate an issue that has historically received far less international attention than renewable power generation: clean cooking.
More than two billion people still rely on polluting fuels such as wood, charcoal and kerosene to prepare daily meals, exposing families to dangerous household air pollution while placing disproportionate burdens on women and girls. Under her leadership, clean cooking has increasingly become part of the broader global conversation about energy security, public health and economic opportunity rather than remaining a niche development issue.
The same philosophy runs throughout her work.
Large-scale renewable projects, modern transmission systems and battery storage are essential components of the energy transition. But their success should ultimately be measured by whether they improve people’s everyday lives—whether hospitals have dependable electricity, businesses can expand, children can study after sunset and communities can participate more fully in the global economy.
Leadership for a Defining Decade
Ogunbiyi’s growing influence reflects a broader evolution in how the international community views energy.
The question is no longer whether clean energy technologies are viable. In many parts of the world, they have become the most competitive source of new electricity.
The greater challenge now is ensuring that financing, infrastructure and institutional capacity reach the countries where energy demand is growing fastest and investment remains hardest to secure.
That is where Damilola Ogunbiyi has established herself as one of the most important voices in global energy policy.
Recognition has followed. She has been named to the TIME100 Climate list, included among Forbes’ Sustainability Leaders and honored with a 2026 TIME Earth Award. Yet perhaps her greatest contribution lies not in the awards she has received, but in the conversation she has helped reshape.
At a moment when much of the world’s attention is focused on gigawatts, grids and investment flows, Damilola Ogunbiyi continues to remind governments, investors and international institutions of the larger objective.
The ultimate measure of the energy transition is not simply how much clean energy the world builds.
It is how many lives that transition improves.
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