How inclusive is South Africa’s green economy? A qualitative case study of the Working for Water Programme

Over the past 15 years, South Africa has embraced ‘green economy’ policy approaches aimed at tackling social and environmental challenges. However, concerns have emerged that these approaches may inadvertently exclude marginalised communities and fail to address the systemic factors perpetuating inequities. Drawing upon field-based research in the Agulhas Plain, we critically examine how the green economy concept is understood and applied in South Africa as a vehicle to include marginalised communities. We use a multi-dimensional ‘inclusion framework’ to analyse four equity dimensions in the country’s largest green economy initiative, the Working for Water Programme (WfWP). Our findings reveal that the WfWP includes communities in a perfunctory fashion, resulting in limited distributive benefits while ignoring several equity dimensions that contribute to existing inequities. These shortcomings are attributed to the neoliberal ideological framework which not only underpins the WfWP, but forms the basis of South Africa’s broader green economy approach. We contribute to counter-hegemonic development debates by advocating for stronger forms of sustainability in South Africa’s green economy approach that challenge power inequities to effect political change.