Problem

South Africa's energy transition presents complex challenges that existing financial systems are poorly equipped to address. The country's coal-dependent regions face significant socioeconomic risks as plants and mines prepare to close. While their national Just Energy Transition (JET) Implementation Plan (2023-2027) outlines detailed and ambitious transition priorities, implementation gaps persist, especially due to limited access to funds - particularly for small-scale community-led projects - and a mismatch between international funding requirements and local implementation capacities. These systemic barriers often leave the most affected communities without viable pathways to participate in or benefit from the energy transition.

Responses

Launched in 2024, the South Africa JET Funding Platform is a matchmaking service that seeks to connect international funders, private sector corporate social investment, and philanthropies with potential JET-aligned projects that require financial and technical support, especially smaller-scale projects and capacity-building initiatives. The JET Funding Platform is not a fund. It is a service designed to link grant funders with JET-aligned projects that require financial and technical support. By offering project preparation support services to assist initiatives to become grant-ready, the Platform seeks to address key systemic gaps by connecting existing - but historically siloed - resources to JET projects that would not be able to draw on commercial sources of funding. 

The focus areas for these projects seek to align with key just transition priorities such as: coal communities workers re-skilling and capacity building programs, economic diversification, and piloting renewable energy community ownership models. The Grants Register process is undergoing finalisation, but projects indicated as aligned with the Funding Platform priorities include the likes of the Komati Training Facility. Located at a shut-down coal power station in Mpumalanga, this provides re-skilling programs for former Eskom workers and local communities, focusing on solar energy and electric vehicle maintenance. The Fund states it will also provide regular updates on the deployment of funds and offer project preparation support services to assist originators in becoming grant-ready.

Find out more: JET Funding Platform; IHRB & JTFL