A Just Energy Transition: Localisation, Decent Work, SMMEs and Sustainable Livelihoods
This project takes a ‘clean energy supply’ approach to contribute new knowledge on how public policy can foster decent work and sustainable livelihoods for workers, particularly women and youth engaged in micro, small and medium enterprises, clean energy generation and associated value chains.
It intersects strongly with issues of access to clean energy to foster its use among micro, small and medium enterprises, with the aim of advancing concrete policy change.
The project will analyse clean energy value chains and their relationships with the rest of the economy. It will trace consumption and production to the practices, history and relations that are reproduced within the clean energy value chains by analysing them at different levels, including agents and agencies, structures, processes, relations, and the cultural and contextual factors.
Using the evidence generated, the project is expected to inform public policy debates and outcomes on clean energy transition, thereby giving greater clarity as to what is needed to ensure a just transition pathway. It will empower stakeholders and build advocacy support by localising clean energy value chains.
Find out more about the project here.
project
Location
Ghana, Kenya, South Africa,
Project outputs
Webinar: Clean Energy Transitions: A care economy lens
Wednesday 16 September 2026
Clean energy transitions: what changes when we put care at the centre? Join us for an engaging webinar exploring how clean energy transitions can do more than expand access to power: they can also reduce drudgery, shift how unpaid care work is recognised and shared, and open up new opportunities for women and young people in […]
Smallholder farmer testing INFoCAT renewable energy powered groundnut pod plucker in Gomoa (Central Region, Ghana). Photo by UNU INRA.
Clean Energy Transitions: A Care Economy Lens
20 April 2026
How can clean energy transitions reduce energy poverty while also addressing the unequal burden of unpaid care work? This is an increasingly urgent question as the global shift to clean energy reshapes not only energy systems, but everyday life within households. Across many low- and middle-income countries, women and girls continue to shoulder a disproportionate […]
Decentralised renewable energy for rural SMEs in Bolivia: benefits, opportunities and challenges for women
8 July 2026
Bolivia is facing an energy crisis marked by shortages of diesel and petrol, and by high energy costs. For small and medium-sized rural family-based enterprises (SMEs), which play a central role in food production and in sustaining rural livelihoods, this situation increases operating costs, affects productive continuity and limits competitiveness, especially in territories with limited […]