This year’s Civil Society Energy Caucus in South Africa was organized around a distinctly governance theme: The new nexus of power and accountability in South African energy. The timing was impeccable: with the new Zuma administration creating a stand alone Department of Energy and avowing a commitment to improved service delivery, a focus on institutional credibility now can provide a strong foundation for making good on these promises going forward.
The governance framing for the Caucus developed by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Corruption & Governance Programme strongly resonated with the concerns of the Electricity Governance Initiative (EGI) in South Africa, and indeed, there is a growing collaboration between the two networks: ISS’ Trusha Reddy participated in the reference group invited to provide feedback on EGI’s assessment of sector governance, and in turn, Idasa’s Gary Pienaar was invited to present preliminary findings of the EGI assessment at the Caucus. Other EGI partners, including Saliem Fakir of WWF, Liz McDaid of Green Connection, and Andrew Marquard of the Energy Research Center gave presentations based on their organisations’ work.
The Caucus was an important step forward in sharing EGI’s work with civil society groups in South Africa, particularly in focusing attention on the relationship between governance and civil society’s ability to engage with energy institutions. Of particular interest to Caucus members were EGI’s findings on gaps in transparency, and the need to better define criteria for putting data provided by Eskom (South Africa’s state owned utility) in the public domain. EGI recommendations for improving governance can be critical links in civil society’s campaigns to improve reliable and affordable service to South Africans, and social movements can in turn sharpen EGI’s own efforts to close governance gaps. We look forward to continued cooperation moving forward.
The full report of the EGI South Africa Governance Assessment can be obtained from Gary Pienaar at gpienaar@idasa.org.za.
The full report of the South African Energy Caucus July 2009 meeting can be obtained from Trusha Reddy at treddy@issafrica.org.
