Just Energy Transition Partnership

A Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) is a bilateral-plus financing platform under which a group of donor governments and multilateral lenders commit packages of grants, concessional loans, guarantees, and private capital to support a coal-dependent developing economy as it decarbonises its power sector. The "just" element signals that funds are meant to cover not only generation infrastructure but also worker retraining, community support in coal regions, and social protection for affected households.

The model was launched at COP26 in Glasgow (November 2021) with the South Africa JETP, in which the European Union, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States pledged an initial USD 8.5 billion over three to five years to accelerate the retirement of Eskom's coal fleet and scale up renewables. Subsequent JETPs were announced for:

• Indonesia (November 2022, G20 Bali summit) — initial mobilisation target of USD 20 billion from the International Partners Group and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
• Vietnam (December 2022) — initial target of USD 15.5 billion.
• Senegal (June 2023) — initial target of EUR 2.5 billion.

Each partnership produces a Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP) setting out sectoral targets, emissions trajectories, and a financing breakdown. JETPs are not treaties; they are political declarations operationalised through memoranda, project pipelines, and donor coordination structures.

Critics note several persistent issues: the share of grants versus loans is typically small (in South Africa's case, roughly 4 percent grants), much financing is on near-commercial terms that may worsen debt burdens, disbursement has lagged headline pledges, and recipient governments retain sovereignty over coal policy. The 2025 US withdrawal from the South Africa and Indonesia partnerships under the second Trump administration also exposed the fragility of donor commitments tied to domestic political cycles.