Local Economic Development: A Review and Assessment of its Current Status in South Africa

Abstract

In recent years, local economic development (LED) has become a widely practised development strategy in the countries of the North at both the local government and community levels. LED is less widely implemented in the South where, in most instances, it appears to be still in an incipient phase. This paper investigates the current status of LED in South Africa, where, over the past decade, local governments, community groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become significantly more active in locality-based economic development. Several local governments have established comprehensive LED programmes including the establishment of LED units and the pursuit of a range of developmental strategies, whilst in parallel, an array of community and NGO initiatives are in place. In almost all cases, however, results are still of a rather limited nature and this paper assesses some of the reasons for this situation.