Role of municipalities in South Africa’s Just Transition

Municipalities are uniquely poised at the forefront of the South Africa’s Just Transition, given their constitutional mandate to provide basic services, encourage social and economic development, and to promote inclusive governance. Local governments also play a crucial role in climate action, developing and implementing plans to mitigate and adapt to climate change at the local level, often through initiatives like green infrastructure, emissions reduction, enabling economic development, and community resilience programmes.

Yet, their actions are strongly determined by the national fiscal, regulatory and policy contexts in which they are embedded in, but it is at the municipal level where the real test of the just transition will play out.

Despite these responsibilities, municipalities must navigate difficult socioeconomic environments that are marked by a lack of funding characterised by financial constraints, ageing infrastructure, service delivery backlogs, and ingrained inequalities. Our municipalities are foundational to the country’s service delivery and governance and are charged with ensuring and fostering social and economic development, creating a safe and healthy environment, and encouraging public participation.

To achieve a just transition, municipalities are central to infrastructure development. Municipalities are tasked with addressing aging energy infrastructure, including substations and distribution networks, which is a common challenge, especially for smaller municipalities.

The current ailing infrastructure inhibits municipalities’ ability to integrate renewable energy. Most municipalities are heavily reliant on Eskom for electricity supply, with limited financial capacity to invest in renewable energy initiatives. Municipalities are particularly burdened by debt to Eskom and struggle with revenue generation.

The Presidential Climate Committee is currently rolling out the Municipal JET Support Programme, which is designed to assist municipalities in navigating the complexities of the energy transition. It emphasises the development of city-level JET plans, which require functional distribution grids, renewable energy integration, equitable access to energy services, and financially sustainable service delivery models. These plans are vital to ensuring municipalities can accommodate increasing renewable energy penetration while supporting economic resilience and inclusivity for communities.

Enabling economic diversification is another critical role for municipalities towards a low carbon future. Coal has been central to South Africa’s economic growth, powering cities, sustaining jobs, and anchoring local economies, particularly those in Mpumalanga. However, dependence on coal has come at a significant cost - environmentally, economically, and socially. Coal-dependent municipalities risk significant economic vulnerability if proactive measures are not undertaken.

Coal-dependent municipalities, particularly those in Mpumalanga must diversify their local economies. To support the private sector, municipalities must lead the charge in shaping an inclusive economic future by strategically diversifying local economies away from coal dependence. The just transition requires planning, economic diversification, stakeholder cooperation and collaboration, community engagement, and innovative approaches to local governance.

To attract sustainable enterprises in their respective localities, municipalities must reduce red tape through streamlining municipal procedures including land-use zoning, local approval processes, permitting, and licensing. Transparent policies and streamlined regulatory frameworks create a conducive environment for attracting investors in key sectors, fostering job creation, and securing long-term local economic stability.

Economic diversification demands robust, supportive local governance and clear policy frameworks. Municipalities must integrate economic diversification goals into their Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) and Local Economic Development (LED) strategies. It is important for these IDPs and LED strategies to receive appropriate financial and technical resources to ensure their implementation. Gone are the days that municipalities undertake these statutory documents for mere legislative compliance purposes.

Community participation remains integral to the success of the just transition. Municipalities are best positioned to facilitate inclusive discussions with communities, listening to their concerns and involving them actively in decision-making processes. Such meaningful engagement better ensures that the transition is just, equitable, and socially acceptable. Even though there are many organisations involved in community engagements in areas such as the coal belt, it is municipalities that are best placed to lead these discussions preventing community discussion fatigue and ensuring that community voices are heard.

The Just Transition Framework sets the foundation for procedural justice within South Africa’s just transition. Workers, communities, and small businesses must be empowered and supported in the transition, with them defining their own development and livelihoods. Municipalities must play an important role in assisting communities to understand what the just transition entails, specifically, and discuss points of agreement and disagreement openly and transparently.

Furthermore, municipalities should actively engage stakeholders across the public and private sectors, including international financial institutions and development agencies. Partnerships can provide necessary technical expertise, funding mechanisms, and innovation platforms required to accelerate local economic diversification and infrastructure development projects.

The success of the just transition at the municipal level hinges on proactive and visionary leadership, transparent governance, infrastructure renewal, collaborative stakeholder relationships, active community participation, and the need to drive economic diversification.

South Africa’s municipalities can indeed secure a Just Transition - one that places people at the centre, values community voices, safeguards the environment, and delivers equitable prosperity for generations to come.

Zimasa Vazi is senior manager stakeholder engagements at the Presidential Climate Commission.

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

BUSINESS REPORT