Just Energy Transition Partnership grants and country platforms: lessons from Indonesia and South Africa
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Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) are political agreements between a group of donor countries and an emerging economy partner country to mobilise and coordinate public and private finance to support a just energy transition. When they were initially launched in 2021 they represented a turning point in international climate finance towards a more comprehensive, country-led approach linking emissions mitigation with social equity in coal-dependent economies. However, their disproportionate reliance on loans has been suggested to have put the ‘just’ component of the transition at risk, particularly in countries already grappling with mounting debt and fiscal constraints.
Country platforms build on the ambitions of JETPs in mobilising and coordinating public and private finance to support a just energy transition while placing greater emphasis on country ownership, coherence, and integration into long-term development and climate objectives. This report analyses the grant distribution of JETPs in Indonesia and South Africa to support future country platform design.
Key findings
- The absence of a clear organising framework for grants results in a shift towards activities that are easy to initiate but difficult to conclude.
- Insufficient resources are allocated to the social dimension, leaving the political basis for transition fragile.
- Institutional durability is uncertain when core functions rely on donor cycles rather than domestic budgets.
Recommendations
- Next-generation platforms could adopt a government-led framework that specifies how grants will be used for four functions: regulatory and institutional reform; project preparation; risk reduction; and social investment. This framework could be subject to periodic, evidence-based review.
- Implementation should follow a time bound delivery schedule, factoring in co-design activity with national and local authorities, regulators, utilities, organised labour, community groups and local firms, and setting delivery milestones, to mitigate against short termism inherent in isolated projects, and focusing on the system transformation as the impact goal.
- Disbursements could be tied to observable milestones, such as standard power-purchase contracts being issued, market rules being enacted, grid upgrades being commissioned, coal units being retired, and workers being enrolled and placed, so that momentum is sustained across election and budget cycles.
- As many transition activities are regional in nature, a defined proportion of grants could also support cross-border power and supply chain initiatives where these initiatives lower costs.
- Institutional roles are central to delivery: national development banks are well placed to originate pipelines and lend in local currency, while multilateral development banks could prioritise guarantees and other balance-sheet tools that are aligned with the priorities of individual countries.
- To maintain trust and enable timely course correction, public grant registers, clear selection criteria, beneficiary reporting to the municipal level and independent monitoring are advisable.
- Over time, functions that are initially funded by grants could be incorporated into domestic budgets to ensure continuity.
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