Accelerating the green transition through skills and innovation

Strengthening certification pathways for decent jobs in the informal economy  

The session examined how recognition and certification systems can enable informal workers to access decent work. Speakers highlighted the need to appropriately recognise existing skills through scalable approaches. This centred around recognition of prior learning (RPL), which assesses and validates what workers already know without requiring them to repeat formal training. Digital badging was also discussed, alongside persistent challenges around funding, assessor capacity, and employer trust.

RPL is especially important in developing economies, where most workers have built skills outside formal education. Traditional qualifications alone cannot capture the true depth of the available workforce.

Speakers stressed that certification must be linked to tangible benefits, including access to finance and formal contracts, and aligned with real labour market demand to ensure it translates into meaningful economic opportunity.  

Presentations

What is the global and national policy context for strengthening certification pathways for decent jobs in the informal economy?

Tracy Ferrier

"From a policy and systems level, we'll only get there if we take a holistic ... approach, if we are open about what we mean by recognition and commit to creating flexible pathways."

Tracy examined the global scale of the informal economy and its implications for the green transition, noting that the majority of the world's workers operate outside the formal economy. Without appropriate recognition of skills, informal workers face significant barriers to progression, decent work, and social protection, reinforcing the notion that RPL is a critical policy tool. She highlighted, however that many RPL systems exist only on paper, disconnected from realities of the informal economy.

Two panellists explored the Kenyan context, noting that of the 708,000 jobs created in Kenya in 2024, 90% were in the informal sector. While Kenya has established three qualification pathways which enable workers to apply for RPL online, a significant capacity gap remains, with 18 million informal workers and only 300 accredited RPL trainers. 

Opening up recognition, growing opportunity in a green economy 

Don Presant 

"If you do it right, you make learning visible by showing people the progression they can make in their lives, mapping their learning journeys and providing recognition that is truly personalised."

Don presented digital badges as an alternative recognition of skills beyond traditional qualification systems. He challenged participants to widen their perspectives about recognition, framing it not as a bureaucratic process, but as a fundamental human practice that builds human capital that empowers both the giver and the recipient. 

Participatory approaches to bridging the skills gap

Delegates explored how participatory approaches bridge skills gaps by better linking communities, institutions, and labour market demand. Speakers emphasised the need for shared ownership, employer engagement, and inclusive decision-making, so that those most affected by economic transformation - or lack thereof - establish active roles in shaping it.

Presentations

Mobilising citizen power in search of a socially and environmentally equitable world

Lina Torres

"We need citizen power that is intersectional because our problems are intersectional. We don't live in silos."

Drawing on a decade of experience bringing communities into transition processes at Movilizatorio, Lina shared participatory approaches that create meaningful power for citizens, including two complementary pathways:

• Collective action that builds political cover for decision-makers. Through strategic public pressure, broad support for change is signalled, giving decision-makers the confidence  to act.
• Developing social infrastructure - from networks and institutions to skills and shared knowledge - that enables engagement on complex issues.

Tools discussed included closed-door lobbying, media coverage, research, and international influence, which can be deployed to create this cover and enable leaders to act.

Strengthening Kenya's TVET ecosystem

Emmanual Choge

"In Kenya ... we have a supply system in academia which doesn't speak to the demand."

Emmanual shared the GIZ's Promotion of Youth Employment and Vocational Training Project, which involves the private sector  in order to ensure skills meet real market demand. Stressing the need to go beyond surface-level actions like adding a single green model or relabelling courses, Emmanual argued for the need to embed sustainability across curricula by, for example, integrating renewable energy systems, resource efficiency, and climate adaption into core technical training. 

Addressing skills gaps through the Skills Centre

Jon Prichard

"The purpose of education is to create the habit of mind such that when you've forgotten all you've been taught, you know how to proceed."

Jon introduced the Royal Academy of Engineering's Skills Centre, a national hub to help engineers and practitioners keep pace with technological changes in areas like AI and clean energy.

He showcased the Connect Northumberland case study, where community-led skills development addresses regional skills gaps and youth outflow by bringing together 70 employers across the Newcastle-Northumberland area to develop leadership, digital literally and practical skills among SMEs in particular.

Keynote Speaker

Elizabeth Wangeci Chege, Board of Directors of World Green Building Council

Elizabeth posited that green skills are no longer a nice specialism, but a core engineering competency. Critically, scaling the green transition requires more than innovation, she said. It demands a full delivery chain of people who are capable of designing, procuring, installing, commissioning, verifying, operating, and retrofitting sustainable solutions. 

Panelist Leslie Igiraneza further empahsized the gap between technical potential, and economic viability. an energy associate at Bayes Consulting, Leslie shared that e-mobility is a key driver of Kenya's green transition, and one that stimulates energy demand, and enables utilities to reinvest in broader energy access. 

Entrepreneur Tracy Kimathi from BARIDI demonstrated how  solar-powered cold-chain solutions address food loss, having preserved more than five million kilograms of food since 2021. She highlighted, however, how much import dependencies continue to inflate prices, limiting reach among low-income consumers. 

The importance of systems thinking in clean energy transitions was surfaced by panellist Rufus Karanja, from Renerge Resources Ltd, who showed that energy transitions and food security are deeply interconnected. 

And finally, Leanard D'Cunha from ZIDI Solar Africa's work on end-to-end manufacturing in Kenya pointed to a broader insight: trusted data infrastructure is as important as physical infrastructure in unlocking green finance.