The greatest challenge facing many governments is the improvement of the levels of socio-economic development in their respective countries, providing better life and improved standard of living to their people. Energy plays a central role in development and the reduction of poverty. The emerging green economy is therefore envisaged to bring about changes in the patterns of production and consumption, in order to lower damaging environmental consequences, while addressing poverty and inequality. The objectives of this paper are, firstly, to review South African policies relevant to the green economy and show the extent of social development considerations and secondly, to illustrate through the case of Maila how a pro-poor, socially-inclusive renewable natural resource-driven green economy initiative may be achieved for rural communities. The methods employed in this research include policy review and a case study of biogas project i