Land and the Just Transition: A Guide for local government
A PARI-IIED-SALGA-ALIGN Project
What is it
The Guide diversifies the narrative and framing of the climate response beyond renewable energy to include the strategic importance of land and the local government in shaping the global climate response.
Why is it important
It is important because land is the base resource on which the climate response is negotiated. The renewable energy responses, adaptation and mitigation strategies are all hosted on land. Despite its importance and centrality to the climate response, land has remained an invisible topic in the debates. Similarly, local government which is the government institution that confronts the reality of climate crisis on the ground is also marginalised from discussions and deliberations around the just transition. It is important to foreground the importance of land in the climate response and framing of the just transition in order to ensure that any responses do not increase vulnerability of already marginalised populations, and in South Africa specifically, that the ongoing processes to redistribute land are maintained.
The Guide foregrounds the importance of local government in climate response and provides guidance on how the current positioning of local government can be renegotiated to enable the institution to support just transition initiatives.
This work set out to explore how the just transition is being understood and implemented at the local government level in South Africa, what bottlenecks exist for the implementation of transition linked projects exist and how municipalities are responding to increasing transition-linked land pressures. With the aim of providing practical guidance to those grappling with the emerging challenges, work was undertaken through adopting an action research approach, working with stakeholders to both identify gaps and collectively seek solutions to articulated challenges.
What does it cover
Land and the Just Transition: A guide for local government is intended to be a resource for municipalities as they navigate issues of climate change, the just transition and land governance. As such, this Guide seeks to support municipalities by:
- Highlighting the importance of land in just transition planning, specifically the role of the land in social and spatial transformation in South Africa. This is to complement and diversify the focus on the national just transition framework, the SALGA strategy on just transition and the Just Energy Transition (JET) programmes.
- Mapping the potential role of municipalities in governing land for the just transition. This includes clarifying relevant regulations, policies and planning practices that shape the transition at a municipal level, including through land use planning and management that can unlock land development opportunities and spatial transformation.
- Providing key considerations for municipalities to ensure decisions around land advance redistributive, restorative and procedural justice – the three pillars of justice underpinning the transition.
- Supporting municipal engagement with the need to leverage spatial planning, improve public participation, strengthen cooperative governance between traditional and municipal authorities, and protect land tenure rights for just outcomes and sustainable livelihoods, including through a series of broad considerations.
- Suggesting approaches through which municipalities can balance competing land-use priorities and environmental concerns, and facilitate sustainable and socially responsible investments into land.
Who is it for
This Guide is primarily intended to assist municipalities in leveraging their land governance, environmental management and planning functions towards realising a just transition. However, it has relevance to broader policy and governance discussions at the national and provincial level, and institutions at this level who are involved in land governance – particularly since improved intergovernmental cooperation and coordination is clearly needed. It may also be of value to investors and private sector institutions who are interested in understanding municipal dynamics around land acquisition, regulation and delivery for the just transition, as well as offering insight to institutions of traditional leadership, communities and civil society engaging with municipalities. It is also part of an emerging international body of work exploring the role of land and the role of local government in the just transition.
