Research Articles (School of Public Leadership)

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Browsing Research Articles (School of Public Leadership) by browse.metadata.advisor "Koopman, C."

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    A comparative analysis of the local economic development practices in South Africa and Namibia
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2002-12) Mutrifa, Browny Nceba; Koopman, C.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Local governments in both developing and developed countries are faced with many developmental challenges. This requires the development of strategies and mechanisms to address socio economic development and to promote partnerships between the communities and municipalities. The development strategy of local economic development has been advanced as a tool to stimulate the economy and to create new job opportunities at local level, in partnership with central government and other stakeholders. It is in this light that the study first presents a description of the concept, and the principles and the processes that underlie local economic development. Followed by this, is an analysis of local economic development in the global context, by briefly mapping what international development agencies are undertaking. Furthermore the study is narrowed down to South Africa and Namibia in assessing the evolving local economic development policies and practices as found currently. The findings indicate that the local economic development strategy is an accepted application in the world. In Namibia and South Africa the practical evolvement is a relatively recent phenomenon of middle 90s, with the latter progressed far in implementing a more advanced policy framework to support the practice. The former is still, very much in the initial phases of launching, with few instruments in place to promote local economic development. In Namibia local economic development is presently evolving under the auspices of the Association of Local Authorities for Namibia, with the National Government giving verbal support and promises to commit it to formulating a national policy in the near future. This practice of LED is faced with constraints such as a lack of funds, inadequate policy frameworks and poor capacity of human resources. This is hampering a nationwide rollout, as to date only two comprehensive cases exist, an indication of the limited evolvement of policy and practice in Namibia. In contrast to this, South Africa is a long way ahead in terms of practical cases and policy making, as it is at the stage of giving comments on the draft policy paper on local economic development. The South African government, amongst other, has already committed financial support to local authorities to help them practically realise the concept of local economic development by means of a National LED fund. Despite the limited evolvement of local economic development in Namibia, the concept is set to gain momentum with the promised envisaged national LED policy, and the current project of the Urban Trust of Namibia coming into full force. This is more so in the capital city, for Windhoek committed itself to the process of implementing its local economic development strategy as from 2003. However local economic development is no panacea for all the problems, for prior experiences show there is a thin line between success and failure in practice. Henceforth, local economic development as a development approach has the potential to contribute to improving the lives of the poor, as long as it is sufficiently linked to broader frameworks and strategies in all spheres of government and even on a global level. Therefore local economic development efforts must be seen as complementing national policy frameworks in achieving sustainable development.