South Africa wants to expand its green economy to help lower high youth unemployment. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has given South Africa’s National Business Initiative (NBI) a grant of $1 million. This funding will help set up a training system to prepare young people for jobs in the renewable energy sector.
The new programme is called the Just Energy Transition Skilling for Employment Programme (JET SEP). It is managed by the National Business Initiative together with Boston Consulting Group. The idea is to help the private sector and government work together to train more young people for energy transition jobs.
The plan works with the government’s Just Energy Transition Skilling Implementation Plan. The focus is to help young people learn the skills they need for new green jobs. The first phase will include studies to design skills development zones. It will also help build skills training at technical and vocational colleges.
These zones will help local people learn and work in new clean energy areas. The training aims to create new local jobs while the country moves away from fossil fuels. JET SEP started in 2024 and is backed by the JET Project Management Unit in the South African presidency. More than 30 business, government, and civil society leaders have shown support for the plan in the last year.
The AfDB’s new grant is part of a larger plan. The Bank has already put $3.4 billion into South Africa’s energy sector since 2007. This includes money for renewable energy projects. The new funding will focus more on training people for renewable energy work.
Alongside training, South Africa is also seeing local solar cooperatives adding small rooftop systems in rural areas. For example, a small school in the Free State province recently installed 200 kilowatts of solar panels. Local farmers in Limpopo are setting up small wind turbines to power pumps, adding about 50 kilowatts of extra local power.
