This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

Nearly a billion and a half people, mainly in Asia and Africa, were living without electricity in two thousand nine. That latest count from the International Energy Agency was an improvement. In Asia, three out of four people in developing countries had electricity in rural areas. So did almost everyone in cities. But in Africa the rate was less than seventy percent in cities, and just one-fourth of the people in rural areas.

There are many efforts to find low-cost ways to light homes. One idea is a "water bulb." This system has recently been used to brighten more than one hundred homes in the Korogocho settlementin Nairobi, Kenya. These included the home of Madina Muhsin's family.