The Managing Director of Project Management Institute, Sub-Saharan Africa, George Asamani, has said that the green transition is critical to global climate goals, but for Africa, it could come at a substantial cost.

According to him, the International Energy Agency warned that under net-zero pathways, about 13 million fossil-fuel jobs could disappear globally even as 30 million new clean-energy roles emerge by 2030.

“The catch is that most of those new jobs will be created in countries that already manufacture and install renewable-energy technologies. In much of Africa, where local production and technical training remain limited, job losses could easily outpace early gains.”

He said much of the global climate conversation to date has focused on policy and finance, but the real make-or-break factor lies elsewhere, in human capability.

“Without a deliberate plan for reskilling, the continent’s green shift could end up creating as many redundancies as green jobs. This perspective is rarely viewed through the lens of talent: How will this transition impact those employed in the fossil-fuel economy, and how will new talent be developed to build and manage the industries of the future?

“According to the PMI Talent Gap Report (2025–2035), Sub-Saharan Africa will need between 1.6 million and 2.1 million additional project professionals by 2035, an increase of up to 75 per cent. Yet education and training systems across the continent aren’t keeping up. The result is a skills deficit that threatens to stall progress in the very sectors most central to the energy transition: construction, energy, infrastructure, and technology.

“Data from the Project Management Institute suggests that about 10 per cent of global project investment is lost annually due to poor performance. In Africa’s infrastructure pipeline, that translates into billions in wasted investment.

“This is where project management becomes the unsung cornerstone of Africa’s green economy. A just transition demands talent transformation, the deliberate effort to retrain and redeploy workers from the old energy economy into the new one.”

Asamani noted that Africa’s green transition will not succeed solely on goodwill. “Governments, development partners, and businesses must act now to integrate project management training into climate finance and just transition plans. If climate investments continue to outpace human investments, the gap between ambition and delivery will only widen.”