scholarly journals From lip-service to service delivery in local Economic development: Guidelines to set up an agency for action

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 721-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Venter

The Constitution of South Africa imposes a burden on municipalities to engage in local economic development. Municipal local economic development practitioners are often in doubt regarding the various mechanisms available to them to implement local economic development. This article provides insight into the processes and issues surrounding the use of an external mechanism (a private company owned by the municipality) as a local economic development agency. The lessons learnt from the Overstrand Local Economic Development Agency are compared with findings of an international study of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on 16 local economic development agencies. The article provides guidelines to local economic development practitioners to follow before, during and after the establishment of a local economic development agency.

2018 ◽  
Vol 114 (5/6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daan Toerien

Statistically significant Pareto-like log-log rank-size distributions were recorded for population and enterprise agglomeration in the towns of three different regions of South Africa, and are indicative of skewed distributions of population and enterprise numbers in regional towns. There were no distinct differences between groups of towns of regions from different parts of the country. However, the regional agglomerations differed from those of groups of towns randomly selected from a database. Regions, therefore, appear to have some uniqueness regarding such agglomerations. The identification of Zipf-like links between population and enterprise growth in regional towns still does not fully explain why some towns grow large and others stay small and there is a need to further explore these issues. The extreme skewness in population and enterprise numbers of different towns’ distributions should, however, be considered in local economic development planning and execution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. Pooe

Abstract The ascension of the African National Congress into formal politics through its electoral victory in 1994 resulted in South Africa adopting one of the world’s most heralded social justice and human rights-based documents, the 1996 Constitution. Yet, two-decades of ANC governance this paper argues has not led to the types of economic development needed to advance the formerly oppressed African majority, Colored and Indian populations. This lackluster economic development is even more troubling when one considers the giant economic development steps Asian developmental states have made, without a human rights and social justice approach. It is the contention of this paper that the newly presented General Theory of Law and Development allows for a new type of analysis exploring the reasons why South Africa’s economic development trajectory has been so lackluster, when so many authorities praise the South African legal framework. In making this argument using the General Theory South Africa’s local governments sphere and local economic development will be the subject of analysis.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Phele ◽  
S Roberts ◽  
I Steuart

This  article explores the challenges for the development of manufacturing through a case study of the foundry industry in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality. Ekurhuleni Metro covers the largest concentration in South Africa, but the industry’s performance has been poor over the past decade.  The findings reported here highlight the need to understand firm decisions around investment, technology and skills, and the role of local economic linkages in this regard.  The differing performance of foundries strongly supports the need to develop concrete action plans and effective institutions at local level to support the development of local agglomerations.


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