INSPIRE @Africa

This research initiative was launched to deepen understanding of how Social Performance (SP) practitioners across Africa experience and navigate their roles within the renewable energy sector. Practitioners working at the intersection of companies, communities and government are key to ensuring that large-scale renewable energy projects deliver meaningful, locally informed benefits – yet their voices are rarely centred in conversations. 

To address this gap, INSPIRE partnered with Botswanan consultant and researcher Lesedi Komi, to engage directly with SP practitioners working across diverse African contexts. The project forms part of INSPIRE’s broader mission to advance co-produced, justice-based approaches to Africa’s renewable energy transition. 

The study aimed to document the experiences of social performance practitioners, identify common challenges and capture practical insights to strengthen social performance practice across the continent. 

The project gathered valuable insights into how social performance is understood and implemented in renewable energy projects, as well as the structural constraints practitioners often face. 

The research findings have now been published in the report Continental Practitioner Study on Advancing Social Performance in Renewable Energy Projects. 

The report captures insights from fifteen Social Performance practitioners working across eight African countries: Zimbabwe, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania, Nigeria and Tunisia. It highlights how social performance is understood, practiced and often constrained within renewable energy contexts. It also provides recommendations for strengthening policy, practice and collaboration across the continent. 

INSPIRE hosted a webinar to share and unpack the study’s findings, facilitate cross-country learning and foster dialogue among practitioners, companies, policymakers and civil society actors to strengthen collective momentum towards professionalising social performance as a core pillar of people-centred renewable energy development in Africa.