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Pakistan’s power sector is full of contradictions and dilemmas. Nowhere is that more visible than in the jumper. Located about 120 km northeast of Karachi, this wind corridor is on paper capable of generating 43,000 megawatts of electricity over an area of about 10,000 square kilometers.
The site has an average wind speed of more than 7 m/s, making it suitable for wind energy production. Jhempar’s large-scale wind power farms stand as important symbols of Pakistan’s move towards a clean, renewable energy future. Vast fields of sleek turbines harness undisturbed winds to generate vital electricity for the national grid, boosting the country’s green energy ambitions. Yet, many local communities living in the shadow of these wind swings lack schools and hospitals. Access to safe drinking water is limited.
A significant number of households here lack access to electricity and are shrouded in darkness after sunset. Some of these households were provided with solar panels but the systems did not sustain long-term use due to fragile and expensive batteries. Unable to afford replacement batteries or maintenance, many families are forced to live without electricity.
Why does such renewable energy potential sit alongside such visible desirability? Wind farms provide little employment for local people. Seen from the sidelines of the vast majority. For them, the giant turbines are less symbols of the opportunities that have passed through them than swirling monuments to modernity.
I met a rare girl from the village who had studied up to the fifth standard. His journey came at a steep personal cost. He had to live with relatives for five years just to access school education. In a village where most girls receive no formal education, she stood out, carrying a quiet confidence born of her rare opportunity. Yet her story also highlights the sacrifices many girls and their families must make to get an education in underprivileged areas.
While power blackouts darken Pakistan’s major cities, the villages of Jhempar endure a deep socio-economic blackout. Women bear the brunt of this: in addition to endless household chores, they trek long distances for water, collect firewood and tend livestock. Absence of health care and livelihood opportunities exacerbates their vulnerability, widening already entrenched inequalities. For children, meager health services and failing schools stunted their development, ensuring that deprivation was faithfully passed down from one generation to the next.
This stark contrast between high levels of energy production and persistent social deprivation reveals a key conflict in Pakistan’s energy transition. This highlights a broader challenge: simply increasing renewable energy capacity is not enough without comprehensive development strategies that improve the lives of local communities. The Jampir example shows how infrastructure investment, although critical to climate and energy goals, can ignore the people whose well-being should be central to sustainable development.
What is ‘sustainable development’ when those living in the shadow of the turbines see none of its benefits? Sustainability is as much about governance as it is about technology. Without policies that bridge social and economic divides, Jhempar’s Wind Corridor risks becoming a showcase for exclusion. Unless local communities are woven into the fabric of planning – through jobs, services and equitable access – the promise of wind power will remain little more than rhetoric, a green success story measured in megawatts rather than better lives.
Current measures of renewable energy success focus primarily on installed capacity and emissions reductions, highlighting technical and environmental benefits. However, they ignore the lived reality of communities like Jhempar, where social development is absent despite accelerating clean energy infrastructure. Without including indicators of human development such as education, health care, access to clean water and job creation, the assessment risks a narrow view of sustainability that leaves vulnerable populations behind. To embrace social inclusion, empower people and drive renewable energy to ensure equitable, sustainable growth, real progress must go beyond megawatt and climate targets.
Sustainable governance means adopting inclusive policy-making that links energy production goals with broader socio-economic development, gender equality and community well-being. This requires going beyond technological breakthroughs to ensure that renewable energy projects actively benefit these people, especially marginalized groups.
Effective governance requires the empowerment of communities through participatory decision-making that ensures their voices are heard. Energy projects should be coupled with targeted investments in health, education and infrastructure to improve living conditions. Gender-responsive policies help address women’s specific burdens and ensure access to resources. Transparency and social accountability mechanisms are essential to guarantee that renewable energy provides both environmental and meaningful social benefits.
Successful examples from the region illustrate these principles in practice. In Nepal, the Alternative Energy Promotion Center has implemented small-scale wind-solar hybrid systems that provide affordable, reliable energy to local households, including marginalized Dalit communities and schools in rural districts. By linking energy access with community development and incorporating wind data acquisition to identify suitable sites, the project strengthens local resilience and inclusion.
Pakistan can be included among the successful examples that prioritize local participation, gender equality and targeted investments in social infrastructure along with the expansion of renewable energy.
Renewable energy, when harnessed through an inclusive development framework, can serve as a powerful catalyst for broader social justice goals by promoting equal economic opportunity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Projects that prioritize community involvement, particularly in the affected areas, can help redistribute economic benefits and promote better social outcomes such as women’s empowerment, education and local skills development.
Trichy in Tamil Nadu, India has become an important center of wind turbine manufacturing, producing more than 50 percent of the country’s wind turbine towers and blades. This industrial growth has created more than 3,500 jobs and has been fueled by targeted training programs from institutions such as BHEL and IIT Madras, helping to build local technological capacity and economic resilience in the region.
On the social front, access to clean energy has been linked to tangible empowerment, especially for women. In rural West Bengal, micro-solar domes have enabled women to engage in income-generating activities by reducing the time and labor involved in traditional energy collection methods, increasing economic participation and social status. In northern Pakistan, the deployment of micro-hydropower plants has provided women with reliable electricity for both domestic and communal use, helping to improve social and economic participation and empowerment.
Research has shown that renewable adoption in South Asia not only drives economic expansion, but also helps reduce income inequality by facilitating fairer income distribution through better energy. Improved access to energy, particularly from renewable sources, is strongly linked to women’s empowerment, enabling increased participation in economic activities and decision-making processes.
The way forward for Jhempar and Pakistan’s energy transition lies in embedding sustainability principles in policy design and practice. First, the expansion of renewable energy should be linked to concrete local development by mandating community development funds in power purchase agreements. These funds should finance schools, clinics, water supply systems and livelihood schemes in wind-rich districts, ensuring that infrastructure rapidly translates into human development gains. Second, policy must prioritize local participation and skill development. Creating vocational training programs linked to the renewable energy industry, from turbine maintenance to sub-manufacturing, can help integrate communities into the value chain and address chronic unemployment.
Third, the governance framework should institutionalize gender-responsive policies, ensuring that women have access to clean energy technologies, microfinance and income-generating opportunities. Mechanisms such as community energy cooperatives, transparent monitoring systems and participatory planning platforms to build accountability and local ownership. By addressing Jumper’s turbines not only as generators of clean power but also as anchors of inclusive growth, Pakistan too can shift from the narrative of installed megawatts to transformed livelihoods.
The author is a gender and climate expert at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute
