By Thabisani Dube
HARARE — Zimbabwe’s shift towards clean energy should give local communities a stake in new projects and ensure that the benefits of the transition do not remain concentrated among private investors, Green Governance Trust Africa Executive Director Frank Mpahlo said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Climate Justice Masterclass for Journalists in Harare, Mpahlo said the energy transition should address ownership, affordability, employment and community participation rather than focusing only on replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources.
The need to expand access to energy remains significant, with World Bank data showing that 62 percent of Zimbabwe’s population had access to electricity in 2024.
Mpahlo said clean-energy projects could reproduce existing inequalities if communities are excluded from decisions about developments taking place in their areas and journalists should ask who benefits from the energy transition, who pays for it and who makes decisions about new energy investments.
Mpahlo said the transition also needed to protect workers whose livelihoods depended on fossil-fuel-intensive industries by creating pathways into new employment.
“Workers displaced from intensive industries should have pathways into new levels,” he said, calling for decent-paying jobs as part of the transition.
Mpahlo said energy should also be affordable to underserved communities, arguing that clean energy could not be considered just if it remained financially inaccessible to the people who needed it most.
He said women should be involved in the energy transition as producers, entrepreneurs and decision-makers rather than being treated only as beneficiaries adding that climate finance should reach local projects, communities and entrepreneurs rather than being concentrated among large infrastructure companies.
He urged financial institutions to make financing more accessible to local clean-energy innovators so that communities could participate meaningfully in the transition.
Mpahlo said Zimbabwe faced a balancing act as it sought to reduce carbon emissions while remaining dependent on sectors such as mining and agriculture and addressing energy-access challenges.
He said renewable energy presented opportunities in areas including electricity, clean cooking, transport, recycling and local economic development, but the benefits needed to be distributed fairly.
“Energy transition is going to happen, guys,” Mpahlo said. “No matter you like it or not, but the just energy transition might not happen if we cannot take care of this other side.”
He urged journalists to examine the social and economic consequences of energy policies and investments and to give greater attention to communities affected by the transition.
