By George Asamani – MD Project Management Institute, Sub-Saharan Africa

Africa stands at a pivotal juncture, being encouraged to decarbonise to save the planet even as it struggles to power its own growth.

With 600 million people still lacking access to electricity and coal being a cheap, reliable source of energy, the continent faces a significant paradox.

George Asamani writes that,” the green transition is critical to global climate goals, but for Africa, it could come at a substantial cost.”

The International Energy Agency warns that under net-zero pathways, about 13 million fossil-fuel jobs could disappear globally, even as 30 million new clean-energy roles emerge by 2030.

The problem is that the majority of those new jobs will be created in the countries that already produce and install renewable-energy technologies.

“In most of Africa, where local production and training in technical fields is minimal, job losses could easily outpace early gains,” he notes

Reskilling

This conflict is most evident in South Africa, where some 100,000 coal miners and power-plant employees risk redundancy as coal is phased out.

Quite a number of them are semi-skilled, having technical and operational experience that cannot be automatically transferred to renewable-energy projects.

“For these workers, reskilling, rather than rhetoric, will determine whether the green transition is truly just.”

Just transition should, therefore, fulfill both roles: to safeguard the people who will lose, as well as to equip the people who will create the future.

This involves coming up with policies that affect the affected employees by retraining them, and at the same time, coming up with a talent pool of projects to spearhead the process of renewable energy.

“A coal plant supervisor already manages complex schedules, safety protocols, and multidisciplinary teams, which are fundamental project-management skills that, with the right certification, translate directly to overseeing renewable projects,” Asamani explains.

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Examples of Change Across Africa.

In some parts of the continent, deliberate reskilling efforts are already taking shape.

In Nigeria, engineers from the oil and gas industry redirect their efforts to solar and energy-related projects through national transition initiatives.

In Kenya, the expansion of geothermal energy has created new opportunities for technicians formerly employed in thermal power.

In Morocco and Rwanda, energy workforce programmes have effectively shifted the mining and fossil sector engineers and technicians to hydropower and wind projects.

Meanwhile, in Ghana, the Bui Power Authority has re-trained hydropower and thermal engineers to manage the country’s growing solar and hybrid projects, a testament to how energy expertise can evolve in response to market demands.

The Human Factor in Climate Ambition.

Much of the global climate conversation has focused on policy and finance, but the real make-or-break factor lies elsewhere in human capability.

Asamani cautions that, “without a deliberate plan for reskilling, the continent’s green shift could end up creating as many redundancies as green jobs.”

He says that this perspective is rarely viewed through the lens of talent.

“How will this transition impact those employed in the fossil-fuel economy, and how will new talent be developed to build and manage the industries of the future?

Bridging the Skills Gap

According to the PMI Talent Gap Report (2025-2035), Sub-Saharan Africa shall require 1.6- 2.1 million more project professionals by 2035, an increment of up to 75%.

Yet the education and training systems across the continent are not keeping up with the pace.

The result is a skills deficit that is threatening to stall progress in the very sectors most central to the energy transition: construction, energy, infrastructure, and technology.

PMI information also indicates that approximately 10% of global project investment across the world is wasted in a year through poor performance.

“In Africa’s infrastructure pipeline, that translates into billions in wasted investment,” he warns.

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Project Management

The green economy in Africa, according to Asamani, is project management.

“A just transition demands talent transformation, the deliberate effort to retrain and redeploy workers from the old energy economy to the new one.”

The green transition of Africa, he maintains, “will not succeed solely on goodwill”.

Project management training should be incorporated in both climate finance and just transition plans by governments, development partners, and businesses.

“Building capability must be accompanied by building capacity. If climate investments continue to outpace human investments, the gap between ambition and delivery will only widen,” he says.

Talent Development

PMI already partners with governments, academia, and industry in Africa to enhance the capacity to deliver projects.

These partnerships are embedding project management frameworks into government infrastructure projects, while Universities are incorporating PMI-compatible courses so as to equip a new generation of professionals for project-based roles in the green economy.

The ability to build on skills and climate ambition ensures that Africa will see its energy transition visionary and viable.

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