Policymakers from Indonesia and South Africa, two of the world’s leading coal producers, convened in an online policy dialogue on September 4, 2025, to highlight skills development and workforce training in emerging green economies. This dialogue underscored shared principles but also that each country is navigating unique labor markets, social challenges, and economic structures when preparing its workforce for a low-carbon future.
The dialogue was the third in a series organized by the UN Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) in collaboration with the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) of South Africa, and the Ministries of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) and Finance in Indonesia.
02 October 2025
Navigating the Green Shift: Indonesia and South Africa Emphasize Skills Development on Their Paths for a Just Energy Transition

Table of Contents
Common Ground: The Path Forward
The dialogue highlighted several shared principles driving the transition efforts in both nations.
- Shared Commitment to a just energy transition, recognizing its profound impact on their economies and communities.
- Focus on Skills as a central theme for the development of a “green workforce” through systematic reskilling and upskilling initiatives that help meet the demands of emerging green jobs.
- Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships that are robust and collaborative are essential involving government, the private sector, labor unions, and educational institutions.
- Data-Driven Planning to be based on rigorous, evidence-based studies to identify job opportunities, assess skills needs, and inform policy.
- Addressing Socio-Economic Challenges like unemployment, structural inequality, wage disparities, and gender considerations to ensure an inclusive transition that leaves no one behind.
- Leveraging Vocational Training relying on each country’s vocational training system—Indonesia’s Vocational Training Centers and South Africa’s TVET colleges— to delivering responsive skills development.

Indonesia's Approach: Upskilling Workers and Formalizing the Green Economy
The Ministry of Manpower and the University of Indonesia, jointly with ILO detailed how the country’s green transition is beginning to generate both new job opportunities and policy innovation, while the country gradually navigates away from coal.
Analysis of more than 260,000 job vacancies in 2022 revealed a growing share of green jobs. The government aims to increase the green workforce from 2.96% to 3.14% by 2029 under its Green Workforce Development Roadmap. Emerging sectors are renewable energy, electric vehicle batteries, palm oil, agro-tourism, and coffee providing as viable alternatives for workers affected by the phase down from coal.
The Ministry of Manpower has collaborated with other government entities and international partners to launch 126 training programs – from renewables to electric car batteries – all freely accessible online. Vocational training scholarships were awarded to more than 32,000 trainees between 2023 and 2024, helping to prepare workers for new labor market demands.
This progress sits within Indonesia’s broader pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. The transition is particularly complex for a country that is the world’s third-largest coal producer and where nearly 60 percent of the workforce is employed informally.
There was a shared recognition that mapping worker demographics, profiling skills, and implementing targeted policies for reallocation and social protection are essential to ensuring that the shift toward greener industries is just and inclusive.

South Africa's Approach: Data-driven and multi-partner based
The National Business Initiative (NBI) outlined how in South Africa the Just Energy Transition (JET) Implementation Plan guides the country’s energy transition, recognizing that it has a highly unequal labor market. To strengthen the focus on human capital, the government launched the JET Skills Desk for training coordination and the National JET Skills Advisory Forum, a multi-sectoral body providing essential input on the skills agenda.
The JETS Skilling for Employment Program mobilizing the private sector for a broad response across government, business CEOs, educational institutions, and labor that prevents fragmented efforts. The program is using deep data analysis to inform future needs, as detailed in the report: Powering Futures, the Green Skilling Opportunity.
The deep dive analysis maps stakeholders and job impacts in affected communities, such as Mpumalanga to then strengthening the supply of qualified jobseekers by partnering with Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges. The JETS Skilling for Employment Programme helps capacitate lecturers and secure accreditation for industry-responsive training. It simultaneously prioritizes enterprise development by incubating new Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMMEs) and up-scaling existing ones. The training specifically targets unemployed youth, graduates, artisans, and displaced workers. This collaborative system is able to link local SMMEs to corporate supply chains, while TVET colleges train young people to ensure a coordinated, on-the-ground impact.
