Transition In Africa Research Articles

Africa’s Transition from Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy Toward the Circular Economy

The term "circular economy" has gained popularity over the past decade, particularly in sustainability, resource management, and productivity. Increasingly, both public and private organizations are exploring its application in daily operations. This article reviews the literature on Africa's energy transition and whether it can be guided by circular economy principles. The study finds that Africa's energy demand will rise significantly due to industrialization and population growth. While Sub-Saharan Africa relies mainly on renewable energy, countries like Algeria, Nigeria, Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt still depend heavily on fossil fuels. Researchers suggest that a circular economy approach could promote renewable energy adoption. However, more research is needed to explore the potential of circular principles in supporting the energy transition.

Privileged Precariat: White Workers and South Africa's Long Transition to Majority Rule

Privileged Precariat: White Workers and South Africa's Long Transition to Majority Rule

Demistifying employment in South Africa's Just Energy Transition: Exploring emerging decent work themes

ABSTRACT The South African energy sector is faced with competing priorities concerned with ensuring environmental sustainability, energy security, and balancing its citizens’ socio-economic needs. The decarbonisation agenda has put a spotlight on the quality of jobs in the energy sector, particularly those in the coal value chain. This paper aims to bring some focus to the subject of decent work as per the International Labour Organisation’s definition and highlights the emerging themes in the South African energy sector. Our research shows that, although the country is on the path to decarbonisation, a clear definition of a job and decent work is needed. We show that if the country is to depend on the Renewable Energy industry, it is imperative to ensure that this industry has the capacity to provide the necessary skills and training to its new workforce and provide fair and just working conditions that would lead to decent work.

Do natural resource rents aid renewable energy transition in resource‐rich African countries? The roles of institutional quality and its threshold

AbstractTransitioning to a carbon‐neutral renewable energy (REN) option to decarbonize ecosystems and mitigate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the negative impacts of climate change is consistent with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13. Scholars have identified natural resource wealth and institutions as critical factors in the REN transition in resource‐rich countries. Financial barriers are arguably the most significant impediments to transitioning to REN, as it is more capital‐intensive and costly to produce, invest in, and use than traditional fossil fuel‐based energy. Meanwhile, weak institutions and corruption in most resource‐rich countries culminate in the resource curse phenomenon and the mismanagement of natural resource wealth. It implies that institutions (weak or strong) modify the natural resource rent contribution to the REN transition. Previous research has paid little attention to the impact of the interplay between natural resources and institutional quality on the REN transition in resource‐rich African countries. This study examines how institutions moderate the contribution of natural resource wealth to accelerating or inhibiting the REN switch in resource‐rich African countries for the period 2000–2021, using fully modified ordinary least squares, a Driscoll–Kraay nonparametric covariance matrix, and moments‐based quantile regression estimators. This study departs from earlier studies by determining the institutional quality threshold above which institutions significantly stimulate natural resource rents to accelerate Africa's REN transition. The findings indicate that institutions in resource‐rich African countries breed inefficient bureaucracies and corruption in natural resource rent administration. These undermine the ability of natural resource incomes to facilitate a shift to renewable energy sources. The threshold analyses indicate that most resource‐rich African countries operate below the institutional quality threshold. This finding corroborates that inefficient institutions abet natural resource rent mismanagement and hinder the channeling of resource income toward the REN transition. The findings' policy implications are robustly articulated and outlined.

Entrepreneurship and Carbon Footprints in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the impact of entrepreneurship on carbon footprints in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study applied the generalised method of moments on the data sourced from the World Development indicators (WDI) and World Governance Indicators (WGI). Result shows that entrepreneurship has a negative but not statistically significant impact on carbon footprints in SSA. Furthermore, across SSA subregions, entrepreneurship has a positive and statistically significant impact on carbon footprints in Central Africa (0.052%) and Southern Africa (0.1914%), while entrepreneurship has a negative and statistically significant impact on carbon footprints in Eastern Africa (0.064%) and Western Africa (0.0273%). Based on findings, the study concludes that entrepreneurs can develop and promote clean technologies, renewable energy projects, circular economy initiatives, sustainable agriculture practices, green transport solutions, and educational programs to lower carbon footprints. This calls for collaboration between stakeholders to create an enabling environment for sustainable entrepreneurship and accelerate Africa's transition towards a low-carbon future. The findings of the study contribute to the policy dialogue for the actualisation of sustainable development goals of good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), promotion of development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation and entrepreneurship (SDG 8.3); sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), climate action (SGD 13), life below water (SDG14) and life on land (SDG 15), respectively.

Do institutional quality and its threshold matter in the sensitivity of the renewable energy transition to financial development? New empirical perspectives

AbstractThe transition to renewable energy is critical for environmental sustainability, consistent with sustainable development goals (SDGs) 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13 of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Scholars have identified financial development and institutional quality as significant factors determining the renewable energy transition in developing countries. This study opines that the efficiency of the financial system in supporting and providing the substantial financial implications that a switch to renewable energy necessitates depends on the quality of the institutional framework. Weak institutions in developing countries produce loopholes and inherent flaws in the financial system that facilitate corruption and opportunism, ultimately promoting dirty energy usage and technology at the expense of renewable energy. This process suggests that the interaction between financial development and institutions can either accelerate or impede the transition to renewable energy, depending on an economy's institutional architecture. Considering Africa's enormous renewable energy resources, previous research has overlooked the implications of the interplay between institutional quality and financial development in spurring Africa's transition to renewable energy. Thus, this study looks at the role of institutions in moderating the relationship between financial development and renewable energy in Africa from 1990 to 2019, using first‐ and second‐generation estimators to capture econometrics' pitfalls such as endogeneity, cross‐sectional dependence, and heterogeneity inherent in the panel dataset. This study departs from previous research in that it uses a dynamic panel threshold to determine the threshold of institutions beyond which financial development is stimulated to spur Africa's transition to renewable energy. The findings show that institutions create loopholes that allow rent‐seeking, opportunism, and sharp practices in the African financial system. These inherent flaws divert financial resources to support dirty energy and undermine the financial sector's ability to support a renewable energy transition on the continent. Also, the findings from the threshold of institutions affirm that African countries operate predominantly below the threshold of institutions, over which institutions enable financial development to expedite the continent's transition to renewable energy. The study suggests that institutional quality is essential in the relationship between financial development and Africa's shift to renewable energy. The findings' policy implications are discussed and outlined.

Oil price shocks and energy transition in Africa

When commodity prices rise in international markets, Africa's economic performance scarcely improves, and when commodity prices fall, its economic performance suffers substantially. This study examines the effect of oil price shocks on Africa's energy transition (ET). Data is obtained for 53 African countries between 2000 and 2020, with the Driscoll and Kraay and Panel VAR regression procedures used. The results reveal that oil price shocks have an adverse influence on Africa's ET, with the findings being strong in both rural and urban contexts. Furthermore, the results expose that the adverse effect is visible only in net crude oil exporting countries, whereas net oil importing countries have no significant effect. Moreover, oil price shocks cannot explain Africa's urban-rural differences in clean energy access. As policy implications, African policymakers should reduce the rural-urban gap in clean energy by investing more in clean energy and technologies in rural areas, which help enhance the resilience of the energy sector to oil price shocks.

Stakeholder-guided, model-based scenarios for a climate- and water-smart electricity transition in Ghana and Burkina Faso

In support of West Africa's potential energy transition under climate change, an international team of scientists and a wide range of local stakeholders in Ghana and Burkina Faso jointly assessed different mitigation and adaptation pathways for energy and water supply and demand, including their implications for achieving SDGs, in a transdisciplinary approach. They iteratively co-developed a range of future scenarios based on i) stakeholder knowledge and priorities, ii) countries' national plans, and iii) simulations with a set of complementary energy and water models. Unlike current national plans, the more ambitious scenarios indicate that the projected rapid increase in electricity demand could be met almost entirely from renewables, but that a diversification beyond hydropower will be necessary. Phasing out fossil fuels would bring West African countries's energy policies in line with Paris Agreement targets and generate additional socio-economic and environmental co-benefits.

Barriers to powering past coal: Implications for a just energy transition in South Africa

The feasibility of South Africa's just energy transition, as dictated by the speed of phasing out coal and scaling up renewables, will rest on a range of techno-economic, socio-political, and socio-technical factors. Interactions between these dimensions of the transition carry significant implications for energy justice. In response, this paper proposes the Just Transition Feasibility Framework (JTFF) to better evaluate how feasibility constraints may impact South Africa's energy transition ambitions, and its more recent commitments to energy justice. Drawing on qualitative findings from interviews with South African energy experts, the study provides critical insights on the national- and community-scale implications of current energy policies. The analysis highlights socio-political constraints related to the Renewable Independent Power Producer Programme (REI4P) which aggravate energy vulnerabilities and misrecognition of places. In addition to strategically tackling a range of techno-economic and socio-technical constraints which are seen to exacerbate distributive injustice, the South African government should extend the 50 km radius scheme of the REI4P to a wider and more inclusive regional basis. Foremost, policy interventions must seek to realign South Africa's Minerals Energy Complex towards a just transition pathway committed to renewable electrification, community empowerment, and sustainable socio-economic structures.

Whose just energy transition? A South African perspective

AbstractSouth Africa's energy transition is underway and the country has adopted a just transition framework for its execution. However, the energy transition in South Africa is confronted by a multitude of socioeconomic challenges. This perspective focuses on urgent issues regarding South Africa's energy transition. The author argues that South Africa's energy transition needs a people‐centered approach; it must place the needs of all citizens at the forefront and leave no‐one behind. The transition must bring to the fore a new economic development pathway that is driven by renewable energy to create new sectors for economic growth, to create decent work, to reduce persisting energy inequalities and to address the ongoing energy crisis. Furthermore, developed economies will be essential in assisting South Africa with a financing deal for its energy transition. It remains to be seen whether the financing deal will indeed be realized. Also, there must be transparency between partners regarding the nature and structure of these deals, and that this finance be channeled to the most vulnerable victims of climate change. South Africa's energy transition model is the first of its kind globally; the world is watching keenly to see whether the country can succeed. Therefore, the challenge remains for South Africa to ensure that the energy transition addresses the country's socioeconomic challenges and prioritizes its people.This article is categorized under: Policy and Economics > Energy Transitions

Reproductive history and breast cancer survival: Findings from the African breast cancer-Disparities in outcomes cohort and implications of Africa's fertility transition on breast cancer prognosis.

Reproductive characteristics are known risk factors for breast cancer but, other than recent birth, their role as prognostic factors is less clear, and has not been studied in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In this setting, we examined whether reproductive factors independently influence breast cancer survival in a subset of the African Breast Cancer-Disparities in Outcomes cohort study. In 1485 women with incident breast cancer recruited between 2014 and 2017, we examined birth cohort changes in reproductive factors, and used Cox models to examine whether reproductive characteristics were associated with all-cause mortality after adjusting for confounders (age, stage, treatment, HIV, and social factors). Four years after diagnosis, 822 (56%) women had died. Median parity was 4 (IQR=2, 6) and 209 (28%) of premenopausal women had had a recent birth (<3 years prior to cancer diagnosis). Each pregnancy was associated with a 5% increase (95% CI: 2%, 8%) in mortality rates, which held among postmenopausal women (5%, [1%-9%]). Pre-menopausal women with a recent birth had 52% (20%, 92%) higher mortality rates. Fertility trends by birth cohort showed declining parity, increasing age at first birth and declining age at last birth, however the impact of these population-level changes on future average survival was predicted to be very small (<3% absolute gain).

The role of natural gas in Africa's Energy Transition

The role of natural gas in Africa's Energy Transition

Understanding perceptions of neighborhood health and non-communicable disease risk in urban contexts in Ghana

Global health surveillance reports show Africa's epidemiologic transition from one dominated by higher burdens of nutritional, maternal, and communicable diseases to one increasingly dominated by non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Debates on the increasing cases of NCDs in the African context have focused on individualistic risk factors to the neglect of other similar important determinants such as the living environment. Drawing on theoretical tenets of the protection motivation theory and using cross-sectional data, we examined neighborhood risk perceptions and self-rated risk of developing NCDs in Ghana. The dependent variable ‘self-rated risk of developing NCDs’ was measured as a binary outcome and the focal independent variable – perceived neighborhood health risk – as an index. We fitted multivariate multilevel regression models to a sample of 1376 individuals across 9 neighborhoods. Results show that respondents who perceived their neighborhoods as risky were more likely to rate their risk of developing NCDs high. A unit increase in neighborhood violence was associated with 8% likelihood of self-rated risk of developing NCDs. However, a unit increase in the aesthetic quality of respondent's neighborhood was associated with lower likelihood of self-rated risk of developing NCDs. Engaging in regular physical activity, and non-tobacco use were associated with a lower likelihood of perceived NCDs risk. We suggest policy agendas intended for reducing the burden of NCDs in Ghana and other LMICs could incorporate programs that target improving environmental characteristics to minimize risks and offer people the opportunity to make healthy choices.

The Effect of China’s Infrastructure Assistance on Africa's Economic Transformation

China's growing investment is transforming the African economy. China's infrastructure aid to Africa is constantly growing and diversifying. Quality and well-developed infrastructure is crucial for expanding African economy, strengthening competitiveness, and improving African's quality of life. This article examines the impact and bottleneck restrictions of population, resources, and industrial policy on Africa's economic transition. The following section analyzes the impact of Chinese infrastructure aid on the economic transformation of Africa, including human capital, industrial clusters, and industrial upgrading. Based on panel data from 2003 to 2022, a quantitative research method analyses China-Africa investment and African economic transformation, comparing to Japan in order to better comprehend the mechanism. In conclusion, an effort is made to elucidate the rationale behind Chinese infrastructure aid and economic change in Africa, together with policy recommendations for future investment and development.

Pragmatic Faith and the Tanzanian Lutheran Church: Bishop Erasto N. Kweka's Life and Work by Amy Stambach and Aikande Kwayu

Reviewed by: Pragmatic Faith and the Tanzanian Lutheran Church: Bishop Erasto N. Kweka's Life and Work by Amy Stambach and Aikande Kwayu Gaylan Mathiesen Pragmatic Faith and the Tanzanian Lutheran Church: Bishop Erasto N. Kweka's Life and Work. By Amy Stambach and Aikande Kwayu. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020. 150 pp. Both authors of this book are at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—Kwayu an honorary research fellow in the Department of Anthropology and Stambach the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Anthropology and faculty affiliate of the African Studies program. Their subject matter for this timely study is how a post-colonial church body in Africa managed to maintain independence and integrity, while holding an increasingly authoritarian state accountable to standards of justice and human rights. The authors tackle their subject through a biographical study of the life and work of the celebrated Bishop Erasto N. Kweka, who for over forty years led the Northern Lutheran Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) through his country's transition from colonialism to independence under a fledgling socialist government. Going beyond customary analyses of colonialism and Pentecostalism, their investigation provides the reader with unique and valuable insight into African religious life by examining the inseparability of Lutheran Christianity with everyday life in local communities, and the integration of doctrinal faith with worldly power. Key components in their analyses are the Lutheran doctrine of vocation, and what the authors call a "pragmatic faith." The first chapter is a detailed introduction to the anthropological foci and methods the authors used. One questionable feature surfaces in their explanations of certain tenets of Lutheran theology, which will at times sound foreign to Lutheran ears. For example, as non-Lutherans often do, they mistakenly ascribe to Lutherans the doctrine of consubstantiation (10), but the ELCT holds to the Lutheran doctrine of sacramental union as described in the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord and the unaltered Augsburg Confession. Chapter two quickly turns to the biographical by exploring Kweka's calling and the forces that shaped him to support independence [End Page 367] and the new socialist government. Thereafter, chapters demonstrate how Kweka led the church in contributing to civil governance without competing for power or territory. Summarized are the challenges he faced in leading the church to address the knotty problems surrounding the separation of church and state. As militant groups co-opted religion for their own ends and others furthered the ethnicization and politicization of religion for theirs, Kweka responded by strengthening ecumenical alliances and buttressing institutional connections with local congregations, working to bring the Tanzanian Lutheran Church back from the brink of factionalized violence. The authors have done readers a great service by surmounting the usual boundaries of Africa's transition to independence to show how a "pragmatic faith" can work to foster integrity in a nation's governance, especially in contexts of rising authoritarianism. The book is a must read for scholars of politics and religion and for students of African Christianity. Gaylan Mathiesen Lutheran Brethren Seminary Fergus Falls, Minnesota Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

South Africa's energy transition – Unraveling its political economy

The concept of a low-carbon transition is increasingly gaining traction in South Africa. This constitutes a major technical, social and political challenge as the national energy sector highly depends on coal. Analysing the driving factors for the ongoing dominance of coal, this case study identifies main actors, objectives, and the relevant contextual factors forming the political economy of energy and coal. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis of semi-structured expert interviews was carried out. The findings yield four main objectives: “Energy availability”, “Maintaining profitability of the coal sector”, “Environmental and climate protection” and “Reducing inequalities and employment insecurity”. Pressing social issues, such as severe social inequality and high unemployment, lead to a complex and multi-layered political and social context. While incumbents and powerful coal-favouring actors try to maintain the status quo, there is a slow but steady increase in legislation favouring the uptake of low-carbon alternatives.

Divergent desires for the just transition in South Africa: An assemblage analysis

In this paper I establish a ‘just transition assemblage’ as a theoretical and empirical case-study to explore the plurality of justice in South Africa's energy transition. The coal phase-out is complicated by the legacies of apartheid, poverty, inequality, unemployment and structural crisis in the state-owned power utility. This transition is loaded with expectation but there is no consensus on what would qualify it as ‘just’. This assemblage analysis clusters desires around two distinct post-carbon imaginaries. The first is an ordering of desires for justice in a diffuse, distributional sense, targeting greenhouse gas emission reductions and looking to smooth the negative impacts of the transition. I label this approach ‘net justice’. This targets more justice overall in defined political spaces, and contrasts with the second orientation around recognising, reconciling, and addressing specific injustices. These desires are distinguished by a contrasting purpose of renewable energy and differing attitudes to its appropriateness or fit. There are incoherent spatial effects, where net justice is shown to be a territorialising project whilst specific injustices need to be de-territorialised. Emphasising desire shows how material and history are enrolled and enlivened, contributing to post-carbon imaginaries. This approach enables injustice and net justice to be understood as conceptually distinct, despite seeming unified calls for a just transition. The primary contribution of this paper is to show how in some cases, popular uses of the terms justice and injustice refer to different things. It forces attention on the question of: ‘justice for whom?’

Can a shift to electric vehicles fast track Africa’s energy transition?

Recently in <i>iScience</i>, Dioha et al. used a bottom-up energy modeling framework to generate insights on future electric vehicle penetration and their potential contribution to Africa's energy transition. In this preview, we discuss electric vehicles within the African context and what it means for Africa's future energy in the midst of a prevailing energy access crisis.

Linking Local Projects With Global Processes: Learning From Transdisciplinary Collaborations in African Cities

The central role of science and robust data sets as a means for advancing sustainable development has gained traction across science and policy communities globally. Furthermore, strengthening the science-policy interface in ways that link scientific knowledge production and societal problem solving requires both inter-disciplinary collaborations, as well as collaboration between researchers and extra-scientific actors. The paucity of data and understanding of the distinctive dynamics shaping Africa's urban transition provide an increasing impetus for engaging alternate and inclusive knowledge partnerships. Whilst the number of knowledge collaborations across African cities is increasing steadily, critical engagement with the practice of transdisciplinary approaches and the potential these alternate knowledge configurations might have for steering Africa's urban future(s) is limited. Drawing on the application of transdisciplinary approaches across 11 projects from the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA 2030 Africa) programme on Advancing the implementation of SDG 11 in cities in Africa, this paper provides insights into the role of transdisciplinary approaches in bridging between local projects and global agendas. Evidence from the LIRA programme illustrates a positive relationship between carefully and purposefully constituted project teams who engage deeply with local contexts and the relevance of the resulting interventions. The common but differentiated experiences across the LIRA projects make it clear that the future of African urbanism is not singular but differentiated according to different local contexts. These projects simultaneously address the conceptual and service delivery deficits in local areas, whilst highlighting blind spots in global policy agendas that are misaligned to the complexity of African cities. The significance of transdisciplinary approaches that link the “what” to the “how” of urban change, is found to be critical in data poor post-colonial contexts, which are urgently in need of evidence-based policy reform shaping the reconfiguration of service delivery mechanisms. Finally, the significance of transdisciplinary research by early career scholars in and of Africa serves to shift the political economy of research on Africa, contributing to the transformative potential of urban experimentation in bridging between the global and the local.

A Gendered Approach to the Yu Chi Chan Club and National Liberation Front during South Africa's Transition to Armed Struggle

AbstractSouth Africa's anti-apartheid struggle reflected an ideal of heroic masculinity that ignored and depreciated women as active political agents. This has contributed to a post-apartheid social order that accepts formal gender equality but that perpetuates gender inequality by discounting women's experiences. This article examines the little-known and short-lived Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC) and National Liberation Front (NLF). Tiny Cape Peninsula-based breakaways from the Non-European Unity Movement – an African National Congress rival – the YCCC and NLF were exceptional amongst early 1960s underground groups in their systematic attempts to theorize guerrilla struggle and assess its applicability to South African conditions and, in the NLF's case, to build a cell structure through political education. Although the NLF's idealized notion of revolutionary life was premised on an abstract individual with traits then associated with public and vocal male activists, nonetheless women participated as equal abstract individuals. The NLF's relatively horizontal cell structure, small cell size, and lack of hierarchy made participation easier for both women and men, allowing women to operate equally within the political space. From their gendered upbringing and early experiences in hierarchical organizations to their brief experience of equality within the YCCC and NLF, the women were then forced into a prison system with an extremely rigid and unequal gender divide. Subjected to the state's regendering project, the political space available to the NLF's women prisoners shrank far more than it did for their male comrades, whose prison experiences became the measure of anti-apartheid politics.