What the Social Employment Fund Reveals About a Just Transition
When Komati Power Station closed in October 2022, it became South Africa’s first major test of what a just energy transition looks like in practice. As the pilot site for Eskom’s Just Energy Transition Project, Komati faced an urgent question: how do you protect livelihoods and rebuild confidence in a community built around coal?
This case study explores how the Social Employment Fund (SEF), through strategic implementing partner Seriti, stepped into that gap — creating part-time work, restoring community activity and laying the groundwork for longer-term development across agriculture, health, early childhood support and enterprise.
The results were real: seven communal gardens, over 107 000 seedlings produced, more than 1 000 households and individuals reached through health and parenting support, and 82 participants moving into employment or education.
But Komati also surfaces a critical lesson for future transitions: social employment can rebuild trust and stability quickly — but without land, water, markets and a funded exit pathway secured before closure, those gains are hard to sustain.
Read the full case study to explore what Komati teaches us about designing transitions that last.