In the run towards delivering the Sustainable Development Goals, the transition to sustainable and inclusive energy systems is urgent. Although the technologies for energy transitions already exist, the pace of change remains too slow. The challenge thus is not primarily technical: it lies in the political and social processes that must accelerate to drive these transitions forward.

The new UNDP knowledge product, How Can Participation Deliver Just Energy Transitions? Entry Points and Lessons Learned from Nigeria and South Africa, draws on a previous research paper and country experiences from Nigeria and South Africa and builds on UNDP’s energy governance framework. It offers practical insights on how countries can ensure that peoples’ participation in energy transitions can strengthen legitimacy, equitable benefit distribution, and broad development outcomes.

Participation matters

As countries commit to just energy transitions that balance economic, environmental and social priorities, they are learning a hard lesson: achieving just outcomes requires governments to create an enabling environment and civic actors to have the capacity and trust to engage.  

This new UNDP guidance confirms that formal participation mechanisms alone do not deliver, and that participation is not simply about consultation. Communities, civil society, youth, workers and private sector actors have to be meaningfully engaged for policies to reflect real needs, anticipate risks, and build the trust required for implementation and long-term sustainability of plans.

Following the 2026 High-Level Political Forum (HPLF), where SDG 7 on sustainable and inclusive energy was reviewed, attention is shifting from political recommitment to implementation, and the quality of participation is critical for the implementation to deliver results.  

A tool for country programming

The guide is designed with practitioners in mind. Rather than prescribing a single model, it offers a flexible menu of entry points that can be adapted to different national contexts and policy stages. These are organized across three key dimensions: 

• Institutional – laws, mandates and participation platforms;
• Political – incentives, power dynamics and trust;

• Technical – accessibility, capacity and implementation.  

   

Enabling meaningful participation

Research results from the Nigeria and South Africa case-studies point to a set of enabling conditions across these three dimensions that practitioners can build on: 

• Institutional enablers: Clear legal mandates and permanent multi-stakeholder platforms that create the obligation for ongoing civic input. South Africa's Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), established alongside its Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), exemplifies this design: formal institutional structures created both the mandate and the legitimacy for civic participation as a requirement of the partnership itself, not as voluntary consultation. This permanence allows for iterative engagement across the full policy cycle, not one-off consultations.
• Political enablers: High-level leadership and inclusive rhetoric. When ministers and presidents publicly commit to civic participation –as South Africa did in framing the JETP as embedding democratic legitimacy– it shifts perceptions of civic value. It creates political space for non-traditional actors (youth, rural communities, women-led organizations) to enter governance processes that might otherwise exclude them. It signals that participation is not a risk to be managed but an asset to be leveraged.

• Technical enablers: Accessible consultation design and civic capacity-building. Nigeria's experience integrating youth representatives into Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) taskforces shows how deliberate inclusion of underrepresented groups, paired with technical support and meaningful roles in policy co-drafting, expands the range of voices shaping energy decisions. When participation processes are designed to be understandable, timely and transparent, they invite broader engagement.

   

What prevents participation  

But the cases also expose why participation often remains tokenistic and why participation that exists only on paper produces limited results. 

• Institutional barriers: When mandates are weak or non-binding, participation becomes discretionary. Ad hoc consultation platforms without legal requirements mean that civic input is contingent on individual government officials' priorities. Without structural anchors, engagement becomes fragmented and ephemeral.  
• Political barriers: Elite dominance and power imbalances undermine trust. Communities with histories of extraction or exclusion will approach participation skeptically. Without deliberate efforts to decentralize engagement, share information transparently, and bridge state-civic divides, participation remains concentrated on well-resourced, well-connected organizations.  

• Technical barriers: Complexity often becomes a mechanism of exclusion. Overly complex consultation procedures, opaque timelines, and inadequate information access exclude marginalized communities. Underrepresented populations often struggle to engage meaningfully when processes assume technical literacy, require travel to distant venues, or provide no feedback loops showing how their input was used. 

   

From insight to action

One key lesson is simple but critical: formal participation mechanisms are necessary but not sufficient; they only work when complemented by political will, institutional capacity, and civic readiness.

The second lesson is easily derived: expanding outreach, improving access to information, and supporting civil society organizations to engage effectively can help ensure that energy transitions reflect a broader diversity of perspectives and lived experiences.

A third lesson relates to capacity. Meaningful participation requires both public institutions and citizens to have the skills, resources, and tools needed to engage constructively. Our findings point to the value of investing in participatory approaches, strengthening civic capacity to engage with technical energy issues, and using digital tools where appropriate to widen access while managing inclusion risks.  

Taken together, the entry points in the new UNDP guide show that participation is not a standalone intervention but part of a broader ecosystem of institutions, incentives, capacities, and relationships. Participation can help create conditions that support local jobs creation, skills development, expanded energy access and community ownership of clean energy projects. It can also enable fairer decisions on social protection, transition finance, and the diversification of fossil fuel-dependent regions, helping ensure that benefits are shared more widely and reflect local priorities. 

A timely contribution to SDG 7

UNDP’s new guide stresses that just energy transitions frameworks require three things to deliver: rules that mandate stakeholders’ participation (institutional), political will to broaden participation in decision-making (political), and the capacity for all voices to engage (technical). Get all three right and it becomes a foundation for legitimacy, equity, and implementation.  

The 2026 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) review of SDG 7 confirmed what this guide demonstrates practically: fragmented governance and policy inconsistency remain major barriers to progress and despite technological progress we are not in track to achieve SDG7 goals. The HLPF outcome confirmed what this guide shows: participation frameworks that are not backed by political incentives and institutional support often fail to achieve their intended impact. Countries preparing implementation plans based on HLPF 2026 commitments can use these entry points to move from rhetoric to practice – ensuring that participation becomes legally mandated, politically supported, and technically resourced.

The stakes are clear: energy transitions can shape social and economic outcomes for decades to come. Ensuring that these transitions are sustainable, inclusive and broadly supported depends not only on technology and finance, but also on governance. The experiences presented in UNDP’s new guide underscore the value of creating meaningful opportunities for participation and dialogue. For UNDP, this means continuing to act as a convening partner, supporting governments and civil society in building the conditions for inclusive and effective engagement.