What needs to happen inside a municipality for a political promise to become a working service? Host Tasneem Essop speaks with PARI’s Sithembile Mbete, Waseem Holland and Sarah Meny-Gibert about the people, systems and decisions that connect plans and budgets to delivery.

Starting with Johannesburg’s struggles to provide functioning fire services, the episode explores procurement failures, political interference and the unequal consequences of administrative neglect. It asks how appointments could be made more transparent, why outsourcing still requires expertise within municipalities, and what concrete commitments voters should demand when parties promise capable, ethical government.

Talking to Tracy Ledger and Jugal Mahabir, this episode does a deep dive into water, electricity, affordability, free basic services, alternative energy and municipal infrastructure. It examines what affects municipal finances, and how the critical need for affordable services could be prioritised by municipalities to support development and livelihoods.

Host Tasneem Essop asks what voters should look for when parties promise better services, including how municipalities use the funding allocated for free basic services. The conversation explores how rooftop solar could support infrastructure maintenance and low-income households, and how water released through the transition from coal could create opportunities for local development. Building on our first season, Just Access: The Real Transition, it asks who benefits from these choices and who is accountable for delivering.

Who decides how land is used, whose rights are recognised, and who benefits from development? Host Tasneem Essop speaks with PARI researchers Gaynor Paradza, Daniel Sher and Federica Duca about how municipal land decisions shape where people can live, work and build a future.

They explore party promises about state land, housing and title deeds, the rights that formal records overlook, and the pressures of a changing climate. From community consent to the location and affordability of housing, the episode asks what it would take for development to challenge inherited inequalities—and for residents to have a meaningful say.

What can voters expect from a new council when the problems it inherits have been building for years? Host Tasneem Essop speaks with PARI researchers Sithembile Mbete, Kate Tissington and Jugal Mahabir about the pressures facing municipalities, from coalition politics and unstable administrations to strained finances and unreliable services.

They examine what parties are promising, what municipalities can actually deliver, and how residents can judge those promises. The episode asks a practical question: who will make local government work, and how will voters know whether they have?

Just Access returns with The Real Democracy, a new PARI series exploring the major issues shaping South Africa’s 2026 local government elections. In this introduction, Dr Sithembile Mbete explains special voting and previews what listeners can expect from the series.

Just Access: The Real Transition is a 10-part podcast series from PARI (the Public Affairs Research Institute) exploring what a truly just transition means for South Africa, not only in energy policy, but in access to land, water, power, decision-making and economic opportunity.

In this final episode, the series steps back to reflect on the deeper questions that have emerged throughout its conversations.

Across the season, researchers, activists and communities have challenged the narrow idea that the Just Transition is only about moving away from coal while protecting jobs in the fossil fuel economy. Instead, the series has argued that South Africa’s transition begins from a society already shaped by unequal access to electricity, water, land, infrastructure and political power.

Drawing together key moments from across the series, Episode 10 revisits some of its central themes, affordability, developmental access, land justice, participation, state capacity, and the enduring influence of South Africa’s minerals-energy complex.

Economist Dr Tracy Ledger reflects on why justice must shape not only the “journey” of transition, but also the “destination”, a future energy system that is more equitable in everyday life. Dr Gaynor Paradza explores how renewable energy development places new pressure on land already marked by historical dispossession, while Dr Thokozani Chilenga-Butao examines the institutional tensions shaping the state’s response to transition.

The episode also returns to one of the strongest themes to emerge throughout the project, that participation is not simply about consultation, but whether people’s realities are genuinely reflected in policy and planning.

At the heart of the finale is a simple but urgent argument, the transition cannot be understood only as a technical shift in energy production. It is also a question of governance, dignity, ownership and access, and of whether South Africa can use this moment to confront inequalities that long predate decarbonisation itself.

The episode closes the series by asking not only how energy will change, but who the future system will ultimately work for.

Just Access: The Real Transition is a 10-part podcast series from PARI (the Public Affairs Research Institute) exploring what a truly just transition means for South Africa, not only in energy policy, but in access to land, water, power, decision-making and economic opportunity.

This bonus episode steps slightly outside the main series structure to bring forward two conversations that deepen and ground the themes explored throughout.

In the first conversation, researcher Nonhlanhla Mathibela reflects on how unreliable and unaffordable basic services shape the realities of women-led households. Access to electricity and water is not only about infrastructure, it is directly tied to livelihoods, caregiving, and the ability to run small home-based businesses. When services fail, the burden falls disproportionately on women, through lost income, increased unpaid labour, and what researchers describe as “time poverty.”

The second conversation shifts to young people navigating the transition in practice. Murial Kwena’s research highlights how opportunities linked to the transition are often short-term, poorly structured, and disconnected from meaningful long-term employment. Training programmes may offer limited skills without certification, while participation processes often exclude youth in practice, despite being open on paper.

Together, these accounts point to a consistent pattern. The transition may promise inclusion and opportunity, but without structural change, it risks reproducing existing inequalities.

Subscribe to follow the full series, and to learn more about PARI and their research, visit www.pari.org.za

Just Access: The Real Transition is a 10-part podcast series from PARI (the Public Affairs Research Institute) exploring what a truly just transition means for South Africa, not only in energy policy, but in access to land, water, power, decision-making and economic opportunity.

Episode 9 brings two central voices in the series together to ask a bigger question, what would it actually take to make justice real?

Tasneem Essop convenes economist Dr Tracy Ledger and political economist Dr Sithembile Mbete to move beyond policy detail and interrogate the deeper political and economic choices shaping the transition.

The episode begins by challenging a core assumption, that inclusion alone is enough. In South Africa, millions are already included in the economy and energy system, but on deeply unequal terms. As a result, inclusion without equity often reproduces exclusion.

From there, the conversation opens up. What counts as “justice” in the transition is not agreed, and different definitions lead to very different outcomes. For some, it is about reducing emissions. For others, it is about compensating workers and regions tied to coal. But a broader view asks how the transition can fundamentally reshape an economy built on inequality.

The episode argues that current approaches risk simply replacing one system with another, swapping fossil fuels for renewables while leaving the underlying structure of the economy intact. Concepts like “green growth” may expand industries, but without addressing equity, they are unlikely to reduce poverty or exclusion.

At the heart of the discussion is a deeper constraint, a lack of political and economic imagination. Policy debates remain siloed, and opportunities to rethink how resources, energy, and economic power are distributed are often missed. Yet the transition also opens up real possibilities, especially if cheaper, decentralized energy can support new forms of livelihoods and more distributed economic participation.

Episode 9 makes a clear argument, the just transition is not only about changing energy sources. It is about rethinking the rules of the economy itself, and deciding who benefits from that change.

Subscribe to follow the full series, and to learn more about PARI and their research, visit www.pari.org.za