Local Just Transitions as a pathway out of Africa’s ‘decarbonisation dilemma’
Author/s: Alexandrea Roberts
In a recent ISS blog post, Alize le Roux writes about how Africa is ‘Too dirty to fund and too poor to leap. Le Roux presents a dilemma that is becoming increasingly familiar across the African continent: how do African countries reconcile the urgent need to industrialise and improve livelihoods with the equally urgent demand to decarbonise?
It’s a paradox that places African nations in a structurally disabling position. Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa face shrinking fiscal space, with government revenues falling from approximately 22% to 17% of GDP over the past decade and public debt rising sharply. Countries are paying more in debt servicing than they can invest in basic infrastructure, let alone a green transition.
Participants from across sectors engage at the Mpumalanga dialogue about how to implement the Just Transition in this coal-driven economy.
At the same time, over 500 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa still live without electricity. Those connected, experience chronic instability: for example, South Africa experienced rolling blackouts on nearly 99% of days in 2023. Infrastructure gaps of over US$400 billion annually persist and more than a third of African people live below the global poverty line. These realities make it clear: expecting countries to leapfrog fossil-based development without the transitional support afforded to wealthier nations is not only unjust, but it also undermines the very possibility of success.
And yet, across South Africa, a deliberate alternative is taking root.
Building from where we are
The Local Just Transitions (LJT) project; an initiative between Economic Development Partnership (EDP) and South African Local Government Association (SALGA), funded by Heinrich Boell Stiftung (HBS), African Climate Foundation and New Economy Hub, has over the past year convened a series of provincial dialogues across all nine provinces in South Africa. It has sought to answer a critical question: what does a just transition look like when it is shaped by those who will live through it?
Rather than waiting for ideal conditions, the LJT project has chosen to begin in the places where the impacts of both climate and economic exclusion are already most deeply felt: rural towns, coal belt municipalities, informal settlements, and under-resourced districts.
In these contexts, the project engages municipal leaders, civil society, workers, and community members to surface practical, locally relevant strategies for a transition to a resilient and just climate future.
The key to the success of the dialogues was the diversity of stakeholders engaged, particularly at the Limpopo dialogues.
From these dialogues, three themes have consistently emerged:
- Local governments are willing to transition from dirty energy but are under-resourced to make that change. Municipalities carry much of the responsibility for service delivery but lack the policy certainty, fiscal tools, and technical support to lead transition processes.
- Transition must start with livelihoods. The immediate needs of communities – jobs, food security, water, energy access – are inseparable from their climate vulnerability. Any consideration of a just energy transition must begin with how that transition can address economic needs.
- Procedural justice is foundational. Transitions imposed from above, without inclusive participation, risk repeating the exclusions of the past and are guaranteed to be unsuccessful.
These insights affirm that while South Africa, like others on the continent, may be “too poor to leap” in traditional terms, the country is not starting from zero. There is abundant social capital: lived experience, trust networks, innovation, and a deep desire to shape a better future. And there is dedication to using the just transition as a mechanism to achieve that future.
From pilot to platform
The LJT initiative demonstrates that a locally led transition is already underway. But to shift from a promising pilot to having systemic impact, sustained investment is needed. This is where funders have a unique opportunity to assist forward-looking action from Africa.
Supporting the LJT means investing in
- Strengthening municipal capability to govern the transition at the local level
- Creates participatory processes that legitimise and accelerate climate action
- Surfaces community-owned projects that are more likely to succeed and scale
- Bridges global climate ambitions with local development realities
Supporting locally led just transitions (to a resilient and climate-friendly future) will help close the green gap not through grand leaps but through many small, steady steps towards progress.
A leap too far
I would argue that Africa is not ‘too dirty to fund’ or ‘too poor to leap’ because as Le Roux points out, this kind of leapfrogging is impossible. The real question is whether the global climate finance system will support locally rooted, politically complex, and socially just pathways that are being implemented across the global South.
The LJT project is one such pathway. It deserves our attention, and our investment.