Sustainable Energy Solutions for South Africa: Ensuring Public Participation and Improved Accountability in Policy Processes
The Institute for Security Studies’ Corruption and Governance Programme hosted the South African Civil Society Energy Caucus in Cape Town on 14 and 15 September 2010. The theme for the meeting was Sustainable energy solutions for South Africa: how can we ensure public participation and improved accountability in policy processes? The two-day meeting explored South Africa’s willingness and ability to deal with the serious governance challenges which lie ahead, with the aim of creating benchmarks for a sustainable and socially just future.
A number of energy-related policy processes were set in feverish motion in 2010. The South African government announced (almost in one breath) that they were to finalise the second Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2), the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff, the Integrated Energy Plan and the Climate Change Response Policy, among others. These policies hold dramatic implications for the country’s energy future. For instance, IRP2 will make key decisions for electricity planning for the next 20 years, locking us into particular technology-favoured choices. In this context, the dominant development ideas, interrelated institutions, incentives and interest groups play an important role in the process of drafting and shaping the new policies and supporting their implementation. South Africa is still trying to deal with a recent past in which energy policy was considered to have been captured by narrow interests. This gave rise to what was widely known as the minerals–energy complex, the effects of which we are still experiencing today. As government proceeds with Eskom’s new Capital Expansion Programme – developed as a response to the electricity crisis of 2008 – the construction of further coal and nuclear power stations (upon which the programme is based, to a large extent) should make us reconsider in whose interest decisions are being taken.
We need to understand how to foster accountability and broad-based participation in policy and policy processes, so that corruption is reduced and more sustainable energy solutions are favoured. We cannot tackle the crises of energy poverty and climate change adequately without this. The Energy Caucus meeting focused on the issues that have been raised by civil society engagement in the various policy processes.
This report is a comprehensive summary of the presentations made and key discussions held at that meeting, based on recordings of the meeting. The opinions expressed are those of the presenters and not necessarily of the author of this report, the Institute of Security Studies, or the Energy Caucus.
