By. Anne Kamonjo.
Anne Kamonjo is an education reformer and sustainability champion working at the intersection of policy, training, and systems change. She currently works at the Ministry of Education, State Department for TVET, leading Kenya’s national effort to institutionalize green skills across technical training institutions.
Africa’s climate transition is gaining momentum. Across the continent, investments in renewable energy, climate-smart infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, and green manufacturing are accelerating. Yet amid this progress, a critical question remains under-addressed: Do we have the people and skills required to deliver this transition at scale?
The Global Initiative on Jobs & Skills for the New Economy, launched at COP30, is helping reframe the conversation. Instead of focusing only on emissions, it’s asking: Are our people ready?
If Africa is to achieve a just, inclusive, and economically viable transition, education and skills development must move from the margins to the centre of climate and energy policy.
Much of the climate conversation has rightly focused on emissions reductions, climate finance, and energy technologies. But increasingly, global and regional dialogues are converging on a shared realization: ambitious climate goals cannot be met without a workforce that is ready to deliver them.
Renewable energy systems, grid modernization, e-mobility, circular manufacturing, climate-resilient construction, and sustainable land use all depend on skilled technicians, engineers, planners, educators, and entrepreneurs. And without deliberate investment in skills, Africa, and possibly the world, risks a paradox where green projects advance, but jobs, value chains, and economic benefits remain limited or imported.
The shift from measuring climate success solely by megawatts and emissions, to also measuring it by people, skills, and livelihoods created therefore becomes a necessary one.
The Missing Link: Education in Climate and Energy Policy
To make climate action work for economies and communities, education systems must be rewired to support it.
This requires a systemic approach that goes beyond isolated training programmes:
- Greening curricula so climate literacy and sustainability concepts are embedded from basic education through tertiary and technical training
- Greening TVET systems, ensuring technical training aligns with real green job pathways in renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste management, and sustainable construction
- Greening teacher training, equipping educators with the knowledge and confidence to act as catalysts of climate learning
- Greening schools and training institutions, turning learning environments into living demonstrations of sustainability
- Greening communities, embedding climate action into lifelong learning beyond the classroom
Most importantly, climate education must be explicitly integrated into national climate frameworks, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans, and Energy Transition Strategies.
Education cannot remain an afterthought; it must be treated as climate infrastructure.
For policymakers, embedding skills into climate strategies strengthens delivery. Policies backed by skilled human capital are more resilient, implementable, and inclusive. They reduce dependency on external expertise and create domestic value chains that support long-term economic growth.
For investors, the message is equally clear. Capital flows faster, and delivers better returns where there is a reliable pipeline of skilled workers. Human capital de-risks investment as renewable energy projects, manufacturing plants, and climate-smart enterprises are more bankable when the workforce exists to operate, maintain, and innovate within them.
Countries that align education, skills, and energy policy will attract not only climate finance, but also industrial investment and job creation.
Kenya’s Experience: Skills as an Enabler of Climate Action
In Kenya, we are beginning to see how skills-led approaches unlock climate ambition.
Efforts are underway to align TVET programmes with real green job pathways, deepen partnerships with industry to drive demand-driven training, pilot climate education in schools and teacher training colleges, and embed youth-focused green entrepreneurship initiatives across counties.
These steps are helping translate climate commitments into tangible opportunities for learners and communities.
However, scale remains the challenge, particularly for rural areas, women, and marginalized youth. This is why sustained policy alignment, financing, and multi-stakeholder collaboration are essential.
A Call to Action
Africa stands at a pivotal moment.
The energy transition presents an opportunity not only to decarbonize, but to redefine development through skills, dignity, and opportunity.
The question is whether Africa can quickly and boldly invest in green skills across all levels of education because climate resilience does depend on people.
When we invest in human capital, we invest in a future that is sustainable, prosperous and just.
