Since 2003, a team of advisors from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), ICON Institute and Swisscontact, have supported the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the South African Local Government Association in tackling local economic development issues.

They are working together to empower local and district municipalities as well as partners in the private sector to initiate local economic development processes and take up economic opportunities, using an efficient, effective and low-cost approach.

Key components of the project are development of local economic development concepts and tools; institutional and human capacity building; and local economic development policy advice, learning and knowledge management. In collaboration with Inwent Capacity Building and the German Development Service, the team nurtured the South African Local Economic Development (LED) Network (www.led.co.za) into a professional, sustainable practitioners’ association with a local economic development knowledge hub.

Close to 1,000 officials, councillors and government decision-makers at provincial and national levels have undergone training to build their capacity in local economic development. The LED project supported the Development Bank of Southern Africa in establishing the Vulindlela Academy as a training provider in South Africa, thus institutionalising local economic development capacity building.

As a result of this project, many key players in the local economic development environment have been armed with the tools and strategies they need to tackle development issues. In addition, the project has created a number of benchmarking tools and standards that allow the capacity and maturity of local economic development across key municipalities to be measured.

Client spotlight
Dr JS Moroka is a rural municipality one hour north of Pretoria that acted as a “human dumping ground” for the Apartheid State’s forced removals. The project worked with the municipality to design a local economic development programme over a 24 month period. Partners in the effort were the municipality, KfW and Development Bank of Southern Africa as funders, and the LED Project.

During the course of the project, a number of projects were identified and are now in their implementation stages. These include the building of a job centre, a crime prevention programme, a waste management project and interventions in the tourism and agricultural sectors.

Project Manager Mrs. Gabriele Trah: trah@ledproject.co.za