Low and uneven rural road lighting coverage in Africa

Africa’s rapid urbanization and infrastructure expansion are driving demand for road lighting across the continent. However, the current knowledge regarding road lighting coverage is fragmented. Here, we employed high-resolution nighttime SDGSAT-1 satellite data, OpenStreetMap road network data, and population datasets to quantify rural road lighting coverage and disparities across scales. The results show that, on average, only 3.52% of rural roads are lit across the continent. Northern Africa (14.65%) exhibits markedly higher rural road lighting coverage than Central Africa (1.28%). Furthermore, the West, East, Central, and Southern African regions have rural road lighting coverage rates below 2.2%. At the national scale, Egypt has the highest road lighting rate at 22.81%, whereas Sierra Leone and Burundi have rates below 0.20%. Overall, our study reveals substantial inadequacies in rural lighting infrastructure across Africa and demonstrates the value of high-resolution nighttime data for monitoring infrastructure.