Water/wind/solar is cheaper now, and it’s not even close. It’s electrifying communities that never had any sort of electrification before since they can buy a few panels and bypass the (often corrupt) power utility in the country. The intermittency is a problem, but it’s still better than not having it at all.

So yes, it looks like they’ll skip carbon-based energy entirely. This is similar to what’s happened with landlines in these regions; they skipped straight to cell phones.

That said, you know where 95% of new coal power plants are being built? China.