Public participation is a central theme in the development of Territorial Just Transition Plans (TJTPs) by EU Member States, and the European Commission provides guidance about who needs to be involved in their preparation and how these stakeholders should be involved. Broadly, stakeholders are identified as “the citizens, businesses, informal groups, and organisations interested and affected by the proposed measures and projects”.
Countries are expected to “organise a comprehensive partnership, including at least: regional and local authorities, economic and social partners, civil society (such as environmental partners, non-governmental organisations) and research institutions and universities.”
These partners should be involved throughout the preparation, implementation and evaluation of Just Transition Fund programs and TJTPs. This includes as members of monitoring committees under the corresponding programs, so that stakeholders are actively involved in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation pillars. In addition, a wider public consultation process is included in the strategic environmental assessment required of all programs that are to be supported via the Commission’s Just Transition Fund.
Ida-Viru, like many other European regions, started to develop a just transition plan that would ensure that, as it promoted a green and diversified economy, these changes do not negatively impact local communities. The region has lower income levels and higher unemployment rates than other regions in Estonia, and there are also cultural differences between the mostly Russian-speaking county of Ida-Viru and the western part of the country. In the preparation of a Territorial Just Transition Plan, the Estonian government therefore created various opportunities for stakeholder and citizen participation.
To support the engagement of young people in this process, the Ida-Viru Youth Climate Assembly was held in Autumn 2021. It was led and organised by the Estonian Fund for Nature and the Rohetiiger initiative, as part of the “Climate Action by European Citizens for Development” project. The Climate Assembly gave youth a voice in the regional transition process and a channel through which their recommendations could inform official policy development work streams. It brought together a group of 40 people between 16-29 years old. Participants learned about the challenges and opportunities of the transition and together developed a set of proposals, many of which were included in the national Just Transition Plan.
All of the approximately 3,500 young people from Ida-Viru County were invited to apply online to join the Assembly. The selection of the final 40 participants was supported by the use of an algorithm that aimed to accurately represent the profile of the county’s youth. Eight participants were additionally selected as ‘climate ambassadors’ to spread the word about the work of the assembly and to raise awareness at the local level about climate topics, through social media and traditional media.
The assembly comprised a three day event, help virtually due to COVID-19. The first day was dedicated to information gathering on the goals of climate neutrality, just transition and possible future development pathways for the Ida-Viru region. Several experts gave short presentations, followed by a Q&A session. On the second day, representatives from the government, industries, and environmental associations were invited to present their views on the Just Transition Plans. A few weeks later, participants gathered again to discuss and formulate a set of proposals for the national Just Transition Plan.
In the end, 26 proposals were adopted after a final voting session. These proposals were then submitted to the Estonian ministries and the union of local municipalities of Ida-Viru to take them into account in the National Just Transition and regional strategy planning processes. Furthermore, a new youth organisation called ‘People with Purpose’ was founded to continue to uplift youth voices; the organisation was invited to join a Steering Committee to monitor the implementation of the national Just Transition Plan.
To support protection and preservation of Costa Rica’s forest ecosystems, the National REDD+ Strategy identifies priority measures including improving legal security by clarifying land tenure regimes and the rights and responsibilities of public and private landowners and holders in the conservation and sustainable management of forest resources, as well as promoting forest entrepreneurship throughout the value chain of the activity and generating additional social, environmental, and economic co-benefits.
The strategy is to be implemented across the country in both public and private forest areas, including collectively owned Indigenous territories and Costa Rican Natural Heritage areas. The engagement of Indigenous communities as the REDD+ Strategy is rolled out is seen as crucial, to minimize the potential for adverse effects on them and to maximize the benefits they derive from the strategy.
The Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework (IPPF) was developed to guide the engagement of Indigenous communities. The purpose of the IPPF is to ensure that the implementation of actions from the National REDD+ Strategy ensures absolute respect for the dignity, human rights, economies, and cultures of Indigenous Peoples who may be affected, by conducting a Free, Prior, and Informed Consent consultation process that generates broad community support.
The Ghana Direct Grant Mechanism (DGM), funded by the Forest Investment Program (FIP), focused on strengthening the knowledge and practices of targeted local communities in REDD+ processes and sustainable forest management. The DGM has a strong focus on the involvement of local communities in decisions about how funding should be used for the community. However, women in Ghana often face many barriers to being able to influence decisions about land or other resources.
Therefore, as the Ghana DGM was implemented by Solidaridad West Africa, a locally based NGO, the elements of stakeholder engagement were deliberately tailored so that different groups within these communities, including women, were able to participate. Training sessions were conducted in local languages, and some communications were tailored specifically to illiterate people.
Men and women were separated when discussing ideas about what to do with grant funding, to encourage women to speak freely about their priorities. The times of meetings (and other communications such as radio programs) were set to match the times when women might be able to attend, such as early mornings and late evenings, and childcare was provided at meeting venues. During the project, data were also disaggregated to track participation in the project by women, youth, and migrants.
Young people will be crucial actors in addressing the growing labor and skills shortages seen in the energy transition jobs market. The Energy Transition Skills Project, launched in August 2022, was developed by Student Energy in partnership with Ørsted to explore young people’s perspectives on their job aspirations, and the barriers they face to accessing new jobs created by the energy transition. The project aims to provide insight to young people, organizations, companies, governments, and other energy actors on how they can advance youth skill development and employment in line with the clean energy transition.
A literature review was first undertaken of current research on youth needs and aspirations related to employment, and to understand issues relating to the emerging jobs market in the energy sector. Following this, an online survey invited young people between the ages of 18-35 to share their perspectives on what is most important to them when looking for a job and what barriers they face to employment related to the energy transition. The outreach process to share the survey with youth across many different communities was supported by various industry stakeholders, youth organizations and other groups. More than 1800 responses were received, from 93 countries around the world.
The project report shares findings from the literature review and survey, including global, regional, and demographic insights, and includes stakeholder feedback on the results shared during subsequent consultation sessions. It provides recommendations for youth seeking jobs in the energy transition and for various energy actors on how they can support youth skill development and employment.
In the context of efforts to update land use planning processes in British Columbia, in 2018 the provincial government organized a two-day workshop on “Resource Planning Partnerships,” which brought together First Nations representatives from different areas with the aim of identifying best practices and lessons learned in land use planning.
Provincial government representatives then engaged directly with First Nations representatives across British Columbia, inviting open conversations about the potential benefits, approaches, and expectations for planning in partnership, the engagement process, and principles that could be used to guide this process of working together.
A follow-up report, The Indigenous Engagement Process on Modernized Land Use Planning in British Columbia: What We Heard, was prepared in order to transparently record the views and opinions shared by First Nations participants. Among the issues raised was that land use planning should better reflect the contemporary context of First Nations peoples as rights holders, and recognize the various burdens or demands that First Nations people are already dealing with under different areas of government policy. The value of a clearly defined policy framework that can guide future land use planning in the province was a recurring theme.
The provincial Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development has subsequently prepared a guide to facilitate better collaboration between planners from the provincial government and Indigenous governments in the creation of land use plans. The guide describes important principles and processes that should be considered during the engagement of First Nations communities. It has been used since in various contexts, such as in collaborating with 17 First Nations to prepare marine use plans for British Columbia’s North Pacific Coast, under the Marine Plan Partnership (MaPP) initiative. The MaPP initiative integrated scientific knowledge with local and traditional knowledge, to develop numerous subregional plans and a regional framework for the sustainable economic development and stewardship of British Columbia’s coastal marine environment.
The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) designed the Youth Green Skills Accelerator Challenge Call to assist young people in translating their activism, commitment and creativity into action. Youth-led organizations, networks or coalitions were invited to propose new and innovative ideas and solutions that specifically equip people aged 15–35 with competencies that will enable them to support their communities in pursuing a just transition to more environmentally sustainable economies and societies.
The Youth Green Skills Accelerator Challenge Call built on the experience of the ILO Skills Innovation Facility, and focused on solutions that contribute to one or more of:
- Upskilling or reskilling young people to enable them to participate effectively in green policy making processes for a just transition;,
- Ensuring peer-to-peer learning on just transitions and strengthening youth coalitions on the subject;
- Creating or improving training programs to equip young people with the technical and soft skills required for the green transition in a given sector/for a given occupation;
- Mainstreaming climate change into existing technical vocational education and training and education curricula and youth programs;
- Improving access to opportunities for green skills acquisition and recognition for marginalized youth;
- Supporting green skills trainers and training providers in becoming agents of a just transition for youth; and
- Translating employment creation, entrepreneurship or business ideas into solutions that accelerate upskilling or reskilling of young people for a just transition in the communities.
The Libiąż Municipality in Poland, with support from the START project, convened a Consultation Workshop on female participation in the green energy transformation, in the context of long-term plans to close the region’s coal mines. The municipality has the ambition of ensuring that, as today’s coal-based economy is diversified and shifted away from mining, the new regional economy provides economic opportunities for women as well as men. In addition to hearing women’s voices, the workshop also aimed to motivate women to engage and become agents of change, and to identify the support they need to do so.
The approach taken was to invite only women. Participants were provided a platform to discuss the possible implications of the transition envisaged for this region, particularly for women, and their ideas on how the region should look going forward to create more opportunities for women to participate in the local economy. For this first event, invitees were women from key local institutions who were already active in local civil society or in “decision-making positions.”
This approach, of tailoring social engagement to empower a specific group of people, provided an environment in which participants not only felt they could speak freely, but also were able to connect with other women from varied backgrounds around the issue of regional transformation.
The Taranaki 2050 Roadmap is a strategy for managing the socioeconomic transition as some of the region’s main economic activities – oil and gas, and dairy farming – are phased down in the coming years as part of effort to tackle climate change. Development of the roadmap followed a process of co-design, with wide stakeholder input throughout.
As part of this process, around 60 young people participated in a specialized youth workshop, and more than 140 children aged 7–18 entered a creative competition to describe their vision for the region in 2050. Students compiled their ideas of the future using different media – drawings, creative writing, graphics, or film.
Taranaki youth have also been engaged through the screening of a documentary film about youth-led climate activism in New Zealand, which profiles the journey and learning process that youth protest organizers have been on in recent years. Bringing youth together with some inspiring stories of taking action was seen as a way to create networks and inspire ongoing engagement in sustainable behaviors, and in climate planning.
In the lead-up to the closure of a major steelworks in Newcastle, Australia, in 1999, cooperation between the steelworks owner, BHP, and labor unions had led to the formation of a joint Transition Steering Team (TST) inside the plant. The TST comprised representatives from management, unions, and other (non-union) employees. The TST served as a useful mechanism for the company and unions to co-develop various phases of transition support, particularly for workers impacted by the steelworks closure.
The TST helped the parties to negotiate redundancy packages and redeployment benefits for workers. It also helped develop and promote the Personal Pathways Programme, a series of individual, employee-tailored support mechanisms that included support services for retraining and finding new employment, as well as the provision of services for financial planning and mental health needs. Local employers used the program to recruit new staff, and BHP collaborated with universities and the state Department of Education to train employees in specific vocations, such as teaching, for which workers with needed skills were in short supply. Around 7,000 separate training events were organized by the time the program finished.
The key to the success attributed to this workforce transition example is the foundation of a trusting relationship between labor and industry, and the proactive engagement of the steelworks company with broader community transition concerns.
In 2019, the regional development authority for New Zealand’s Taranaki region organized various sessions with diverse stakeholders to listen to people’s ideas about what the regional economy might look like in coming decades. These were designed as “regional roadshows,” where a progress report was printed and shared with participants as a basis for deeper discussion about implementation of the Taranaki 2050 action. Each session covered topics specific to the district where the event was held, focusing broadly on how to green and diversify the regional economy, particularly to benefit the people most at risk of losing their jobs or livelihoods because of the transition. Ideas from these events were filtered down for inclusion in various “transition pathway action plans” that guide implementation of the Roadmap.
Labor unions were actively engaged during this process. New Zealand’s biggest private sector union, E tū, which represents workers across various sectors, sent eight member-leaders to the launch of the Taranaki 2050 Roadmap Summit. All received training in the concept of just transitions, so they could better help union members in different industries connect their issues with the Roadmap process.
The NZEI Te Riu Roa (New Zealand Educational Institute) also participated. Educators play an important role in the community, in addition to preparing educational curricula. To support the union’s engagement, NZEI Te Riu Roa employed a dedicated community organizer to work on climate change issues with its members.
In April 2023, the Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) research institute and the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT) hosted a workshop in Johannesburg on developing a roadmap for decarbonizing South Africa’s steel and iron value chain. The event was organized at the request of South Africa’s Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (DTIC) and designed to help support national-level plans for decarbonising the sector, including the Steel and Metal Fabrication Master Plan.
The workshop brought together about 60 decision-makers and experts from industry, government, and civil society, as well as multilateral organizations, with the purpose of helping to frame the key obstacles, targets, actors, and actions as a starting point for the development of national decarbonisation roadmaps for the sector.
The dialogue focused on challenges and opportunities to achieve sustainable growth and development of the iron and steel value chain in South Africa, in the context of heightening climate change risks and a changing global and local policy environment. In addition to presentations from government and sector experts, participants broke out into smaller working groups and were asked to identify challenges in implementing a low-carbon transition along iron and steel value chains; challenges could relate to technology, policy and regulation, economic factors, or trade. Participants were invited to clarify the origin of the challenge and the extent of its impact on the value chain. Using a back-casting approach, participants were also asked to identify transition goals and to nominate plausible timeframes. The workshop provides the basis for continued dialogue on the decarbonisation of steel production in South Africa. The discussions, lessons learned, and ambitions identified are expected to feed into ongoing roadmapping processes in South Africa.
The workshop also demonstrated the need for more dialogue and more stakeholder engagement and interaction going forward. For example, covering issues related to just transitions for workers and communities impacted by changing production methods, how different actors in different segments of the steel value change can be integrated into emissions reduction plans, and how energy services can be secured for the steel sector in ways that allow South Africa to benefit fully from its competitive advantages in the global shift to green steel.
A Just Transition Taskforce was created in 2019 by the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), as a means of engaging a range of private sector organizations (who are PPCA members) as transitions away from coal are being planned. The initial Taskforce was co-chaired by the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Welsh government, was subsequently renamed the Just Transition Expert Group. Its members are experts from around the world, including from trade unions, academia, and civil society.
The Expert Group is intended as a resource for private companies to understand coal transitions, and to engage in transition planning. It exists to:
- Share experiences and best practice across the group and with wider PPCA members;
- Create a pool of expert partners that PPCA member companies can draw on; and
- Act as a platform for the PPCA to engage with countries on finding practical solutions to the issue of workforce transitions.
The PPCA creates knowledge materials in support of this work, through publications, webinars, and other events targeted to their private sector members.
Public participation is a central theme in the development of Territorial Just Transition Plans (TJTPs) by EU Member States, and the European Commission provides guidance about who needs to be involved in their preparation and how these stakeholders should be involved. Broadly, stakeholders are identified as “the citizens, businesses, informal groups, and organisations interested and affected by the proposed measures and projects”.
Countries are expected to “organise a comprehensive partnership, including at least: regional and local authorities, economic and social partners, civil society (such as environmental partners, non-governmental organisations) and research institutions and universities.”
These partners should be involved throughout the preparation, implementation and evaluation of Just Transition Fund programs and TJTPs. This includes as members of monitoring committees under the corresponding programs, so that stakeholders are actively involved in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation pillars. In addition, a wider public consultation process is included in the strategic environmental assessment required of all programs that are to be supported via the Commission’s Just Transition Fund.
Ida-Virumaa is a former industrial center with large deposits of shale oil. The local shale oil industry has been in steady decline since the 1990s, but it still makes up a significant share of regional employment. A Territorial Just Transition Plan for Ida-Virumaa is being developed, building on two main strategic documents: the Ida-Virumaa Action Plan 2015–2030, prepared by the Ministry of Finance, and the County Development Strategy 2019–2030, prepared by the Association of Local Authorities of Ida-Viru.
There are various elements to the partnership model adopted by the government of Estonia to support stakeholder engagement in the development of the TJTP, including:
- A Steering Committee comprising government ministries (Finance, Economic Affairs and Communications, Environment, Social Affairs, Rural Affairs, Culture, Education and Research); Parliament representatives; employer and worker groups (Chamber of Commerce, Estonian SME Association, labor unions, Union of Employers, Chemical Industry Union, Council of Rectors); local partners (Association of Local Municipalities, Ida-Viru Enterprise Centre, Ida-Viru Investment Agency); the Chamber of Environmental Associations; the Unemployment Insurance Fund; and youth representatives (NTO PWP Union);
- A regional just transition platform, established in 2020 by the council of the Association of Local Authorities of Ida-Viru County. It involves more than 50 organizations, including local authorities, oil-shale enterprises, labor unions, environmental associations, ministries, NGOs and business representatives;
- “Soft” networking structures, such as a regional scientific council, and tourism and educational clusters; and
- Public consultation activities, including seminars, focus group meetings, public communication campaigns, and written consultations (e.g. online opinion polls).
The Green City Action Plan (GCAP) process involves identifying a city’s environmental challenges and systematically assessing, prioritizing, and addressing them through various policy instruments and sustainable infrastructure investments. To date, around 50 cities have joined the GCAP program, from Albania, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine, among others.
Stakeholder engagement is a critical part of the process for developing GCAPs. The EBRD’s guidance on engaging stakeholders during this process sets out five key principles:
- Those who are affected by a decision (in this case, by implementation of the GCAP) have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.
- Stakeholders should be able to influence the decisions made by the process, which means their engagement should commence early in the process.
- To support meaningful participation, stakeholders must be provided with information – and opportunities to influence decisions – in ways that are accessible, timely, and tailored to the specific needs or constraints of different stakeholders.
- The process should specifically seek and support input from vulnerable or marginalized groups, such as women, and must be free from manipulation, interference, coercion, intimidation or retaliation.
- Stakeholder inputs should influence the final plans, and stakeholders should receive feedback on how their contributions were considered.
Within Europe, climate assemblies are a method increasingly used by national and local governments to involve community stakeholders in decision-making on climate policy. Citizen assemblies are a way of bringing different types of community stakeholders together to learn about a particular issue, have the opportunity to discuss it, and then form ideas and recommendations about what should happen and how.
Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Spain, Austria, and Scotland have all set up citizen assemblies with the goal of helping to develop proposals for the transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient societies and economies.
In France, the Citizen Climate Convention (Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat) brought together 150 people from across different parts of society, all of whom were drawn by lot. The forum was used to build awareness about climate policy issues, to facilitate discussion and debate, and to develop legislative and regulatory proposals on a range of issues relating to combating climate change, including energy savings, thermal renovation of housing, agriculture, mobility, ecological taxation, and any other area of action deemed relevant to achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 in a manner consistent with social justice.The French President committed to submit the Convention’s final proposals “without a filter” either to a referendum, to a vote in Parliament , or to direct implementation. Participants met seven times during 2019 and 2020, and their plenary meetings were broadcast to the public online. The Convention was managed by a constitutionally independent institution (CESE), supported by a Governance Committee, technical and legal experts and facilitation experts, and included several “guarantors” that were tasked with ensuring the neutrality of debates. The Convention ultimately arrived at 149 separate proposals (available here).
In the United Kingdom, the Climate Assembly UK (CAUK) involved more than 100 people from different backgrounds and different sectors. Participants met over six weekends during 2020 to discuss options for climate action and develop recommendations about what the UK should do to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. They published a final report in September 2020.
The Taranaki 2050 Roadmap was prepared through an extensive co-design process (which is described in Section 4 of the Roadmap itself). Initially, a Lead Group was created with the purpose of guiding the process and ensuring its integrity. The group comprised 27 people from community, Māori peoples, unions, local business, and local and central government. The Lead Group determined engagement methods as well as how the ideas, principles, and values expressed through the process would be developed into a Roadmap. The group also identified the 12 topics or “pathways” around which the process would be organized, by drawing on various analysis about the local economy and wider research on economic transformation.
Twelve separate working or exploration groups were then set up to develop each of these themes: energy; food and fiber; tourism; the Māori economy; people and talent; innovation, research, and development; infrastructure and transport; health and well-being; arts; environmental sciences; regulatory issues; and metrics and evaluation.
A total of 23 workshops were used to bring more voices into the deliberation on these 12 topics. Workshops were led by local facilitators, open to the public, and also involved a range of invited topic specialists from around the country. Another five more general workshops were held for community members who were interested, but might not want to join the narrower thematic discussions. These workshops were a chance to invite perspectives on feelings about the region and its key characteristics for the community, suggest ideas for its future, and hear about and give feedback on the emerging thinking from the 12 working/exploration groups.
Other methods of stakeholder engagement used included creative competitions for youth, surveys, and public consultation sessions on the draft. In total, over 1,000 people contributed to the process of developing the Roadmap.
The Rhenish lignite mining region in Germany wanted to promote the hydrogen economy as an alternative to lignite mining, both for energy supply and as a driver of local economic development. In 2019, the region hosted a “design sprint” involving a multi-disciplinary group of 15 representatives from politics, academia, business, and civil society. Its aim was to come up with digital product(s) that would advance the objectives of a local hydrogen economy, specifically by identifying barriers or problems and presenting solutions. Hence, the sprint also partnered with a small start-up with expertise in creating digital solutions.
Following a design sprint methodology over several days (described in detail in the source reference), the group came up with the prototype of a new digital platform, H2pro3, which connects the different players involved with the hydrogen economy in the region.
There are several examples from Costa Rica of different methods for facilitating dialogue and citizens’ creative input in climate action planning.
The Citizens' Advisory Council on Climate Change, created by the government in 2017, provides a deliberative space for representatives of “social, sectoral and productive organizations” to meet and discuss, and advise the government on, various climate change issues. Among other things, the Council should provide input to national climate change policies, including the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.
Also in 2017, Costa Rica’s Platform for Citizen Integration (Plataforma de Integración Ciudadana, PIC) was set up as a civil society organization, with the idea of using technology to stimulate collaboration and public participation in policy development. The PIC process is structured around three main components:
- Creating dialogue with citizens, and allowing people to share views on what can be improved in the country;
- Developing new proposals in a participatory way, allowing different people to meet and present their own proposals and to co-create solutions with other members of the community; and
- Providing information about new projects that are being implemented and who is involved.
Engagement happens mainly through an online tool, the Ágora PIC platform. Using this interface, citizens can propose geo-referenced ideas, are able to co-create new proposals collaboratively, and can launch community projects or participate in local decision-making.
- Just Transition in National Climate Plans – An Analysis of Case Studies from South Africa, Costa Rica and Ukraine (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2021)
- Citizens' Climate Change Advisory Council (Latinno)
- Contribución Nacionalmente Determinada 2020 (Government of Costa Rica, 2020)
- Plataforma de Integración Ciudanana
- Citizen Integration Platform (PIC), Costa Rica (Participedia)
Various examples from across Latin America show how hackathons have been used as a method for co-developing ideas to tackle different social and urban challenges. Hackathons bring together a multidisciplinary array of participants, usually a mixture of thematic experts, computer programmers or developers, graphic designers, and communicators. They are designed to be quick (e.g. 12, 24 or 36 hours), during which participants work together to develop creative “prototypes” that allow them to overcome a specific, clearly defined challenge. Solutions should be practical and consider likely benefits, use cases, and who should be involved in the implementation.
The Hackathon Innovate Brasilia (2017) involved around 80 people, mostly students, in the task of identifying problems relating to public safety, urban mobility, and education. Mentors from each thematic area participated and advised participants. A subset of the solutions developed was selected for further development or implementation, by a jury of public policy specialists, representatives from local government, academia, and civil society.
The Hackathon against Domestic Violence in El Salvador (2013) engaged a group of citizens, programmers, technicians, and designers in the task of defining projects that would help address domestic violence. In response to eight separate challenges that were worked on, proposals included, for example, a complaint app for children, a platform for children’s rights, a tool for documenting and centralizing data, an SMS campaign to raise awareness of different types of abuse, and advice and information on how to file a complaint.
The Transport Hackathon: Changing Mobility in Your City in Medellín, Colombia (2018) engaged stakeholders to create solutions to specific mobility and transportation problems (such as road safety, multimodality, service or cargo systems, alternative transportation, among others) particularly using data, technology, and access to information. Some proposals were selected for further incubation and development into prototypes or pilot programs that could be taken further by local authorities.
The IDB Cities Laboratory is a platform designed to encourage innovation, design, and experimentation to inform local efforts to promote sustainable urban development across Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Cities LAB encourages innovative (“non-linear”) problem solving approaches, co-design, experimentation, and sharing of lessons learned from past experiences, in order to come up with ideas for urban design that challenge traditional thinking, and which are replicable to other contexts. Co-design processes usually involve officials of the Inter-American Development Bank and various local actors, including community members, academics, and government representatives. The essence of the lab is to jointly create demonstration projects that can act as a proof of concept.
The Lab’s “toolbox” describes various examples of how the methods have been applied to specific contexts across Latin America, including Montevideo (Uruguay), Medellín (Colombia), Panama City (Panama), Mexico City (Mexico), and Buenos Aires (Argentina), among others.
In Slovakia’s Upper Nitra region, local stakeholders initiated and led a bottom-up process to develop an Action Plan for phasing out coal mining and supporting a just transition for the region. This process came out of dissatisfaction with a top-down regional planning process being led by national government and large coal value chain businesses, in which local stakeholders were unable to participate.
Following a roundtable organized by the mayor of Prievidza, a mining center in the Upper Nitra region, in 2017, a public invitation was announced in 2018, by the mayor and the local associations of towns and villages of Upper Nitra, for all citizens to participate in the creation of an Action Plan for future development of the region. There were no limits placed on the number or competencies of participants, and initially more than 50 people engaged in the process. These representatives from local government, local businesses, schools, social institutions, and NGOs, joined around 15 meetings, usually held on the premises of the local authorities (costs were met by the local authorities and by NGOs).
Through this process, participants formed various working groups on the themes of economy, transport, social infrastructure, technical infrastructure, and tourism. Working groups were headed by regional opinion leaders, with support from the Technical University in Bratislava. They explored questions around the regional assets that could underpin future development, opportunities for economic production, gaps or needs to support diversification and development, obstacles (legislative, bureaucratic, financial, or infrastructure-related) that might hinder the achievement of regional visions, and which level of government is responsible for addressing them.
The set of priorities and pillars for regional transformation that was identified by these working groups ultimately became the foundation for the region’s Transformation Action Plan that was eventually adopted by the national government.
This example demonstrates the power of locally led planning: Although the national government process occurred separately until April 2018, the local process eventually gained so much legitimacy that the national government realized it should be the basis for the final plan, and the two parallel initiatives began to cooperate. Public hearings on the draft Action Plan were held in 2019 in all affected towns of the region, and the draft the Action Plan was shared widely through targeted communications and online, to invite public comments. In mid 2019, the Transformation Action Plan of the Upper Nitra coal region was approved by the Slovakian government. It signaled an end to any new coal mining and to electricity production from coal by 2023.
Some further lessons from the process can be found here.
The Environmental Strategy and Action Plan (ESAP) of Bosnia and Herzegovina is intended to provide different governments within the country with strategic goals for improving the environment and protecting human health, and feasible actions that can achieve these goals. The ESAP also aims to align the country’s legal and institutional frameworks with European Union environmental policies and procedures, to identify priority actions to be supported with domestic finance, to attract international financial assistance, and to raise public awareness around environmental issues.
The final plan is the result of an extensive participatory process. In each of the country’s four main jurisdictions, seven thematic working groups were set up (28 groups in total), to cover different environmental policy areas. These groups were led by local Bosnian experts, and participants were experts from government, civil society, academia and business: around 700 people participated in one or more of the groups, representing 97 government institutions, 27 municipalities, 13 civil society organizations, 77 companies, 25 academics, and 16 associations.
Groups met six times over the two years in which the ESAP was developed, with feedback integrated by lead experts into a working document between meetings. Participants were presented with background information about the thematic area and state of play in the country, and were invited to discuss goals and actions that should be pursued over the coming decade. The working groups were originally to be in person meetings, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant that all 111 working group meetings were conducted online.
The working groups developed the substance of the ESAP, which was referred at various times during drafting to overarching political bodies set up by the project for their review and feedback. This essentially created a two-way communication process between the higher-level political decision makers and those experts and stakeholders working on the ground in the daily reality of addressing environmental issues.
In 2013, the government of Malawi prepared the Malawi Strategy on Climate Change Learning, to identify and then address critical knowledge gaps in developing policies and programs about climate change. The strategy’s objectives were to strengthen human resource capacities at the individual level, strengthen national institutions and other systems that can lead the development and implementation of climate-related training initiatives, and create an ongoing financing mechanism for climate change learning programs.
A process to revise and update the strategy began in 2020, culminating in a new strategy in 2021 . Extensive stakeholder engagement was a feature in the preparation process for both strategies. As part of the 2021 process, in addition to literature reviews and stakeholder consultations and planning workshops, various concept notes describing pilot projects (on youth and higher education institution networks) were developed through online and face-to-face consultations. Feedback on the draft strategy was also sought from regional stakeholders outside Malawi (from Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa), as well as through a national validation workshop.
The idea of the Post-Coal Future Labs (PCFL) is to provide venues where stakeholders can come together to discuss and develop collective solutions for how to tackle problems relating to coal region transitions. Their aim is to foster dialogue among stakeholders from different regions, enable knowledge exchange, and establish a community of practice. A driving idea behind the PCFL concept is the creation of safe spaces that allow stakeholders to talk openly about challenges, failures, and successes.
The PCFL works with coal regions in Southern, Central, and Eastern European countries, and has two streams. Regional Mini Labs bring together diverse stakeholders in Poland (Silesia and Wielkopolska), Czechia (Moravian-Silesian Region), and Greece (Western Macedonia). In addition to enabling collective problem solving and knowledge sharing around specific transition challenges, the mini-labs also build capacity to work with concepts such as “just transition” and “systemic transformation.”
The Main Lab provides a forum for cross-country exchange, bringing together the lessons and knowledge from the Mini Labs as well as a wider community of stakeholders to share insights from the regional level.
The format of the Labs is experimental and participatory. There is no single methodology used in the labs; each session is tailored to its topic and aim. The problems discussed are brought by the stakeholders themselves, so in this way the labs are designed to respond to real challenges in these different regions.
The PCFLs are a similar concept to UN Habitat’s urban labs and other urban labs in Europe, such as UrbanLab Gdynia, which are designed for ongoing collaboration among citizens, governments, and other stakeholders.
The PCFLs are convened by a collaboration of Climate Strategies, Wise Europa, the European Regional Framework for Cooperation, and Impact Hub Praha. The Labs are funded by Climate-KIC.
The EU Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition has taken various approaches to building capacity among European countries and regions on the transition away from fossil fuels. It curates published resources (such as regional profiles and transition toolkits), holds webinars and convenes other forums to connect stakeholders, and also delivers technical assistance tailored to individual regions.
A related Platform Initiative for Coal Regions in the Western Balkans and Ukraine hosts a Coal Academy to address possible capacity gaps relating to the design and implementation of energy transition strategies, aimed at public officials, regional and community leaders, workers, enterprises, planners and program implementers, and civil society organizations.
One of the methods used for building knowledge is the facilitation of region-to-region exchanges. These are designed so that stakeholders from different coal regions can engage in direct, one-on-one dialogues. Six sets of exchange partners were set up initially under the Western Balkans and Ukraine Initiative. Participants prepare for their exchanges by developing “roadmaps” for the exchange, clarifying the topics they are most interested in and the formats that would be most suitable, as well as areas where external technical expertise would be particularly welcomed. All exchanges feature one or two in-person visits, as well as virtual interactions.
For example, as part of an exchange between coal regions in Poland and Ukraine, Ukrainian representatives from the public and private sector visited cities in Poland’s main coal region, Silesia. These visits create an opportunity for counterparts to share experiences on the regulatory, organizational, economic, social, spatial, and environmental issues arising during the transition away from coal.
There are various examples of national knowledge portals about just transition.
The Just Transition Knowledge Portal created by Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) provides access to a growing body of work on just transition in South Africa. The open access portal is essentially a compilation of analysis and research outputs that relate to different aspects of transition, as well as reports by unions and government authorities. It also includes some short summaries, videos and podcasts.
The India Just Transition Centre (IJTC) established by iForest was set up in response to a perceived gap about how just transition concepts can be applied in the global South. It aims to build the capacity of stakeholders, in relation to the Indian context particularly, by providing thought leadership and generating new knowledge about the policies and strategies that can be foundational for just transition planning, and by providing a platform for peer to peer exchange and learning around climate action. It also has the aim of supporting wider South-South collaboration on just transition concepts and practices.
Chile’s Plataforma Urbana was created as a portal for different kinds of information about urban development. It is designed to provide data and perspectives about urban challenges, to inform people about current and ongoing decisions and policies affecting urban spaces, and to enable participation by citizens in dialogue about their needs, priorities, and ideas. The platform provides a “meeting place, which gives anyone the chance to give their opinion and contribute ideas to improve our cities.”
It does this in various ways: by compiling news articles about urban development issues across Chile from different sources, and also creating its own news content; by sharing written and visual guides to different urban areas, describing their history and some interesting features of today’s urban landscape; by inviting people to submit opinion pieces about a wide range of urban-related issues, such as accessible transport, air quality, urban design, urban regeneration, and sustainability; and by sharing information about upcoming events by different organizations.
The aim is to inspire citizens to contribute to debate about how Chile’s urban areas are developed, and in doing so result in better design and construction of urban spaces, so that they are more inclusive of the values of different stakeholders, including local people.
There are various examples of using podcasts as a medium for sharing knowledge about aspects of transition. Some of these examples are specific to one place or region; others are more general in focus.
In Western Australia, the state government and community radio teamed up to produce the Collie Just Transitions Podcast, which explores very local transition issues in the Collie coal mining region. Episodes cover themes such as regional skills development, mental health, and the work of labor unions. They also provide information about ongoing local initiatives and projects that aim to support the region through the transition.
The Just Transitions: Economic Diversification for Coal Dependent regions (Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Climate Investment Funds) episode of the Energy 360° podcast series explores the opportunities and challenges of economic diversification for coal-dependent regions in India and South Africa. Other episodes in the series cover themes such as the gender dimensions of transitions, environmental remediation, and challenges in creating and implementing just transition policies (the latter drawing on experiences from coal regions in the United States, South Africa, and India).
The Futures Beyond Coal series (Stockholm Environment Institute) captures conversations between researchers and local stakeholders in South Africa and Australia about the social, economic, and political dimensions of transition away from coal mining.
The Tell Me How: ‘Just’ Transitions in the Coal Sector podcast episode (World Bank) describes how different policies might be used to help catalyze new economic opportunities in transition regions.
The Just Transition in Action podcast miniseries (World Resources Institute) explores insights and lessons about how to manage different aspects of energy transition, from various contexts (including India, the United States, and Australia).
The South to South Just Transitions project involves research and advocacy organizations based in nine different countries across the Global South: Argentina, Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao PDR, Malawi, and Vietnam.
These teams – all with a background in climate and sustainability issues, though some of whom with little or no previous experience working on just transition issues specifically – have each been exploring what the concept of just transition means in their country. The idea is to place the concept in the socioeconomic context and consider the types of changes implied in the respective government’s commitments to tackle climate change. In doing so, the teams both deepen their own working familiarity with key just transition issues, enabling them to become agents who can support planning in future. They also broaden awareness among other stakeholders in country about what a just transition means and what steps might be needed to integrate it more deeply into climate and development planning.
Each research team has undertaken stakeholder consultations in country, and in some cases have also conducted field research with stakeholders in specific sectors, such as transport. They have written up their findings into public reports and briefs which can be shared locally, but also internationally. The teams also participate in joint meetings to hear experiences from among the other project countries, as a learning exercise.