The Ford Foundation commits $5.7 million to supporting an intersectional, multi-program, and partner initiative on just energy transitions in Africa

As part of the Ford Foundation’s broader mission to combat inequality around the globe, the foundation has initiated a multi-faceted, five-year initiative to support the advancement of Africa’s just energy transition. The initiative brings together partners based in and working across Africa to advance equitable and just energy transitions. Supported by three Ford Foundation programs (Natural Resources and Climate Justice, Civic Engagement and Government, and Future of Workers), this initiative recognizes that a just energy transition is a whole-of-society endeavor that must respect human and environmental rights, promote sustainable development and economic justice, reduce poverty and inequality, and create decent work and quality jobs.

This initiative recognizes that as African countries initiate their respective energy transitions, they will display a range of approaches and needs. These differences emerge from the unique contexts of their transitions and the different impacts on various stakeholders. A just energy transition will not come from a one-size-fits-all approach; social, economic, and environmental justice—underpinned by inclusion, transparency, and rights protection—must be at the core of its design, ambition, and implementation.  

“Energy transitions will have systemic, far-reaching consequences with differing impacts on various communities, sectors, and more. Working with diverse partners from across civil society, labour, government, and the private sector, this initiative aims to support multi-stakeholder processes of negotiating this distribution of losses and gains in an equitable way that advances climate justice and delivers social and economic development,” said Emmanuel Kuyole, Ford Foundation program officer, Natural Resources and Climate Justice in the Office of West Africa.

“A just and viable transition must include all voices from civil society, Indigenous communities, and those protecting the environment, as well as address different justice claims, and any alternative peaceful views must not be criminalized or punished,” said Otto Saki, Ford Foundation program officer, Civic Engagement and Government International.  

This initiative brings together a diverse group of partner organizations that will navigate and respond to competing definitions of justice through grants, convenings, learning, and research. It will help nurture the broad-based societal coalitions, made up of civil society organizations, policymakers, the private sector, and others, that are needed to advance transformative action that puts Africa on a path towards a more equitable and inclusive low-carbon development trajectory. Additionally, this initiative will prioritize impacts on historically excluded communities and workers and embed gender justice and feminist thinking and approaches.

“A just energy transition needs to be worker-centered and gender-transformative in order to be truly just,” said Ghada Abdel Tawab, Ford Foundation senior program officer, Future of Work(ers). In that sense, the need for social dialogue and negotiation is at the heart of the fund’s mission to catalyze broad social coalitions that can agree on how to balance impacts on communities with different— and often conflicting— justice claims. 

In collaboration with Ford’s Office of Strategy and Learning, the initiative will also produce analytical pieces and case studies that will provide evidence and reflections on what it means to center justice in energy transitions. Through this collaborative effort, where the different strengths of partners are leveraged in the interest of furthering the just transition, the collective influence and expertise of these organizations will support decision-making that keeps the well-being of those most affected by the transition at the forefront. 

“Successful just energy transitions that reduce inequalities will require agreements in which the voices of the majority of—and ideally all—societal actors are represented and have some degree of power, but also in which all actors are prepared to compromise, and in that way build a broad coalition in support of these transitions,” said Anthony Bebbington, Ford Foundation International Director, Natural Resources and Climate Justice. 

The five main partners for this initiative were selected to tackle specific challenges surrounding the just energy transition in Africa:

The Coalition for Human Rights in Development (CHRD): A worldwide Global South association of movements, communities, and organizations that demands accountability from DFIs, governments, and corporations.

Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP): An organization based in Ghana that works to improve economic transformation and inclusive sustainable development in Africa’s extractive governance space.

The African Climate Foundation (ACF): An organization based in South Africa that focuses on developing, supporting, elevating, and catalyzing climate action across Africa through grants, research, technical assistance, and targeted advocacy.

The International Trade Union Confederation Just Transition Center (JTC): An organization that brings together workers, businesses, and governments in social dialogue to ensure that labor is actively engaged in planning for a just transition.

ENDA Energie: A Senegal-based nonprofit with the objective of supporting and guiding communities through transition processes towards lasting and sustainable development.