Equipping South Africa’s workforce for a just transition through up-skilling and re-skilling

At COP 27, South Africa launched its Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP) for 2023–2027. The JET-IP lays out the investments required to support the decarbonization commitments and is in line with South Africa’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). It outlines priority investment requirements in the electricity, new energy vehicles, and green hydrogen sectors. To give practical effect to achieving these ambitions, Cabinet has approved in November 2023 an Implementation Plan, in which a wide range of stakeholders in government, business, labour, civil society, and international organisations are playing crucial roles in ground-breaking energy transition initiatives. This project, implemented with the support of GIZ under the Career Path Development for Employment (CPD4E) programme, is proposing to improve the employment prospects of the South African workforce under the overall JET commitments, by identifying and implementing transition pathways in selected provinces, economic sectors, and occupations. The intervention will focus on a research-based upskilling and reskilling strategy that can enhance employability and unlock job opportunities for vulnerable workers affected by job losses. The implementation foresees a phased approach, starting with the identification of a pilot project for a limited sample of beneficiaries, which could be replicated for larger audiences or expanded into both supply and demand side additional interventions, depending on outputs achieved, further needs identified, and buy-in of targeted stakeholders. Expected outputs are identification of occupational/skills levels the targeted population(s) can aim at and existing or potential skills mismatch in a medium to long term perspective; assessment of the capacity of skills development systems to provide the required skills and identification of potential skills development partners; sharing of research findings with tripartite+ constituencies at national and local levels; prioritization of entry points for just transitions in targeted areas with a specific focus on upskilling and reskilling needs; consensus reached on targeted sample of beneficiaries; identification of sectors, value chains and industries that can absorb or unlock job opportunities; project site(s) identification and identification of industries exposed to job losses and enterprises/value chains that can unlock new job opportunities for the targeted sample of beneficiaries; definition of the employment promotion pilot project, including nr of ultimate beneficiaries, and targeted institutions (enterprises and training providers); skills development programme designed, tailored to the needs of selected industries and including both on-the-job and off-the job components.

Project symbol

ZAF/23/03/DEU

Admin unit

DWT/CO-Pretoria

Start date

30/11/2023

End date

14/07/2025

Total allocation

914568

Total expenditure

Status

Active

378605

Development Partners

Germany, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Country/Countries

South Africa

Outcomes

Outcome 3: Full and productive employment for just transitions