ILED Final Research Report

In recent years Local Economic Development (LED) has received growing attention
internationally, largely for its assumed potential to address localised economic and social challenges and promote local development. It has been increasingly recognised that LED represents a strategy with potential to address local development backlogs, particularly in the Global South, where traditional ‘top-down’ approaches have generally failed to catalyse significant local change. One dimension of LED is the local government variant which is styled as ‘developmental local government’ and has been actively promoted in South Africa for almost 20 years in an effort both to achieve post-apartheid socio-economic redress and to
energise economic development.
Twenty-one years after South Africa’s transition to a democratic state many of the country’s development and unemployment challenges remain unresolved despite the pursuit of a range of development interventions, including LED. There is clear evidence that social and spatial inequalities remain deeply entrenched and that efforts to promote the growth of the national economy have seen little benefit accumulating to especially the more marginalised regions of the country. Within this context spatial interventions, including LED, are gaining greater prominence as key elements of the development terrain. The National Development Plan and
the National Growth Path, are the two guiding national development programmes and both clearly articulate the need for spatial targeting, while a range of other interventions are being introduced or are receiving reinvigorated support. These include, inter alia, rural development initiatives, special economic zones, targeted support for inner-cities and poorer neighbourhoods, infrastructural development and assistance to small businesses, cooperatives and the informal sector.