Making Africa’s Energy Transition Work: Local Manufacturing, Decent Work, and Sustainable Livelihoods
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On 8 and 9 October 2026, researchers, trade unionists, policymakers, manufacturers, small and medium enterprises, and civil society organisations from across Africa will meet in Johannesburg to examine how the continent’s energy transition can support local manufacturing, decent work, and sustainable livelihoods.
The conference, Making Africa’s Energy Transition Work: Local Manufacturing, Decent Work, and Sustainable Livelihoods , will present and discuss research undertaken in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa as part of the Just Energy Transition: Localisation, Decent Work, SMEs, and Sustainable Livelihoods project.
Africa’s energy transition could expand access to sustainable energy while supporting industrial development, employment creation, and more resilient local economies. These outcomes will not, however, emerge automatically from increased investment in renewable energy.
Without deliberate intervention, African countries may continue to export raw materials and import high-value technologies, while much of the manufacturing value, productive capacity, and profit associated with the transition is retained elsewhere.
Making Africa’s Energy Transition Work: Local Manufacturing, Decent Work, and Sustainable Livelihoods , taking place in Johannesburg on 8 and 9 October 2026, will examine what is required to build more just and developmental renewable energy value chains.
The conference will bring together researchers, trade unionists, manufacturers, small and medium enterprises, community representatives, policymakers, and experts from Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and beyond.
Drawing on research into renewable energy components and production networks, including solar panels, batteries, inverters, and wind towers, participants will consider:
opportunities for local and regional renewable energy manufacturing;
the barriers confronting SMEs entering renewable energy value chains;
the potential for decent work and sustainable livelihoods;
the gendered organisation of paid and unpaid work;
coordination between energy, industrial, trade, and environmental policy;
cooperation between organised labour and domestic industry;
energy poverty and access to affordable power; and
lessons from international energy and industrial transitions.
The conference will also provide a platform for the presentation and discussion of country case studies from Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. These studies examine how public policy can strengthen domestic productive capacity and ensure that workers, women, communities, and local enterprises benefit meaningfully from the transition.
The conference forms part of the Just Energy Transition: Localisation, Decent Work, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Sustainable Livelihoods project.
The project is undertaken by the Institute for Economic Justice, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the African Centre for Technology Studies, the African Centre for Energy Policy, A Rocha Ghana, and World Energy Council: Future Energy Leaders Ghana, with funding from the International Development Research Centre.
More details soon.
