{"id":21715,"date":"2026-08-09T15:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=21715"},"modified":"2026-08-09T15:45:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T15:45:54","slug":"study-shows-wind-and-solar-projects-in-kenya-and-south-africa-dont-always-benefit-the-communities-that-host-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/21715\/study-shows-wind-and-solar-projects-in-kenya-and-south-africa-dont-always-benefit-the-communities-that-host-them\/","title":{"rendered":"A study shows wind and solar projects in Kenya and South Africa don\u2019t always benefit the communities that host them"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lars Buur*<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Private investment in clean energy projects is growing: in sub-Saharan Africa, it\u2019s approaching\u00a0US$40 billion a year<\/a>. These \u201cgreen transition\u201d investments in solar and wind power are meant to benefit the environment and develop the communities where they are based.<\/p>\n

I am a specialist in natural resource governance and in a\u00a0recent paper<\/a>\u00a0I looked at whether local communities in South Africa and Kenya benefited from these investments.<\/p>\n

Postdoctoral fellow Jacob Ulrich, research assistant Eivind Bj\u00f8r\u00e5s and I wanted to find out how green energy projects in Kenya and South Africa affected local communities: who benefited, who decided how benefits were shared, and who missed out.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0two broad approaches. The first was \u201cbuying in\u201d, where communities become partners in projects through co-ownership, long-term land leases or benefit-sharing agreements. The second was \u201cbuying out\u201d, where communities are compensated with money for giving up or losing their land to the project or are relocated, and are excluded from the project\u2019s longer-term benefits.<\/p>\n

In South Africa, we researched the\u00a0Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme<\/a>. This is a government programme that invites private companies to bid to build wind and solar power projects and then sell the electricity they generate to the national grid. The private companies have to give local communities at least 2.5% ownership.<\/p>\n

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But our research\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that even this well designed approach can end up buying communities out, if communities have no say in what a fair deal looks like. Our research found that South Africa\u2019s big green energy projects, mainly in the Northern Cape, hardly benefited local communities.<\/p>\n

In Kenya, we interviewed local community members, officials and developers who\u2019d been affected by the Lake Turkana Wind Power<\/a>\u00a0project, Africa\u2019s largest wind farm.<\/p>\n

The project was built on land traditionally used by\u00a0pastoralist<\/a>\u00a0communities. Protests and lawsuits followed, resulting in long-running\u00a0conflicts<\/a>\u00a0between investors and local communities.<\/p>\n

We concluded that both cases point to the same problem. Green energy projects often measure success through jobs, dividends and infrastructure, but overlook what communities value most: their land, livelihoods and way of life. For pastoralist communities, money cannot replace access to the land they need to move livestock and sustain their way of life.<\/p>\n

Until investors start asking what communities value, and build it in from the start, Africa\u2019s green transition will keep buying people out instead of buying them in.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s renewable energy programme<\/h2>\n

South Africa\u2019s renewable energy programme is designed as a model of buying-in. It was created with social justice in mind, where companies have to tender for projects that are\u00a0awarded<\/a>\u00a0by the state. The companies bidding for contracts must commit to a certain level of job creation, local (Black) ownership and community development.<\/p>\n

However, in practice, the picture is more complicated. Our research found that private energy companies in South Africa aim to meet their community obligations because it is a condition of being awarded a tender to set up a project. This is different to wanting communities to have a\u00a0real say<\/a>\u00a0in the kind of development they need.<\/p>\n

In these projects, when money does flow to the communities it often takes years. Sometimes the communities only earn dividends years after construction starts once the project is up and running. In areas of deep poverty, such delays<\/a>\u00a0can be devastating to a community that gave up land for a solar farm, for example.<\/p>\n

The compensation people receive is also part of the problem. We found that people near renewable energy projects in South Africa often lose their land and are not compensated with money or other land but with community halls and social services that are chosen by the private energy companies.<\/p>\n

These only meet some needs, and the communities have no say, even though consultation is built into the tender process. Private energy companies need to work with local communities to decide how they want to be included, or whether direct cash transfers, or some combination of cash and services, would better reflect what communities themselves value.<\/p>\n

Kenya\u2019s Lake Turkana Wind Power project<\/h2>\n

The Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya tells a different yet\u00a0similar story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When it was launched, the project looked promising. It came with backing from several Scandinavian state-backed investment funds. These investors were expected to meet global standards for how they treated people and the environment.<\/p>\n

But the local Rendille, Samburu and Turkana El Molo communities experienced things differently. For them, fair compensation meant secure ways to earn a living, access to land and water, and recognition of their customary rights to land that their survival depended upon.<\/p>\n

Communities\u00a0pushed back<\/a>, setting up roadblocks on the roads the project had built. Investors tried to adjust their approach, setting up a\u00a0foundation<\/a>\u00a0to compensate affected people.<\/p>\n

While one village was relocated, many more pastoralist communities lost access to land they relied on for grazing, water and cultural practices. This was because the compensation scheme didn\u2019t recognise nomadic groups without permanent settlements as affected people, and they were excluded.<\/p>\n

For people whose way of life depended on moving across the land, this was not a fair deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eventually, local residents on behalf of the Indigenous pastoralist communities took their case to the Kenyan courts, which ruled\u00a0in favour<\/a>\u00a0of their land and customary rights.<\/p>\n

However, the Kenyan court ruling had little\u00a0practical effect<\/a>, because although the court agreed that the communities\u2019 land had been taken in an irregular manner, it did not stop the wind farm from going ahead.<\/p>\n

This is an example of a project following\u00a0international standards<\/a>\u00a0for community consultation, resettlement and compensation, where nevertheless, the affected communities were bought out rather than bought in.<\/p>\n

What needs to be done<\/h2>\n

For local communities, a fair deal means being able to keep making a living, having access to energy, protecting their rights to land and water, and having a real say in decisions that affect their future.<\/p>\n

The gap between what investors value and what communities value needs to be closed. That starts with recognising that different communities want different things. For some, financial compensation may be enough. But many want a lasting stake in the project that delivers benefits over many years. Communities also want a voice in decisions about how green energy projects affect their lives.<\/p>\n

If green energy investments are to deliver on their promise of development, governments and investors need to start by asking communities what they consider a fair deal. Land, livelihoods, culture and ways of life may be just as important as financial returns.<\/p>\n

These priorities should shape projects from the beginning, rather than being treated as something to deal with after decisions have already been made.<\/p>\n

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* Professor in Political Economy of Development and interim Head of Department, Roskilde University\u0632<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Private investment in clean energy projects is growing: in sub-Saharan Africa, it\u2019s approaching\u00a0US$40 billion a year. These \u201cgreen transition\u201d investments in solar and wind power are meant to benefit the environment and develop the communities where they are based.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"The Conversation","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,30,7],"tags":[111,5387,122,5386],"class_list":["post-21715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-southern-africa","category-studies","tag-kenya","tag-solar-projects","tag-south-africa","tag-wind-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21717,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21715\/revisions\/21717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}