Lekwa Local Municipality 2013/14 - Co-operative Governance and ...

“To be the leading, people centered municipality excelling in economic growth, development and governance”2.8 Integrated Sustainable Rural Development StrategyCountless efforts by the South African government to undertake joint ventures with an assortment ofstakeholders had assumed multiple instruments. One of the recent instruments is the ISRDS aimed atenhancing opportunities and well-being of rural people.ISRDS is defined as a federal policy designed to realize a vision that will “attain socially cohesive and stablerural communities with viable institutions, sustainable economies and universal access to social amenities,able to attract and retain skilled and knowledgeable people, who are equipped to contribute to growth anddevelopment”. The ISRDP calls for the progressive coordination and integration of programmes by variousgovernment departments and stakeholders to maximize the development of rural communities. This vision is aradical one in that it envisages transformed rural economies, which move away from subsistence economicactivities. Local government is the point of delivery and the implementation of the ISRDP. Specifically, theimplementation process aims to strengthen the quality of Integrated Delivery Plans (IDPs) and the delivery ofthese IDPs.The vision of ISRDP is informed by four elements, which include:Rural development: going beyond just the poverty alleviation connotation, but focusing onchanging rural environments to create enabling platforms for people to earn more and to investin themselves and their communities. This emphasizes that rural people must be the masters oftheir own destiny and to survive and improve their own economic packages within theirenvironments;Sustainability: sustainability evolves from increased local growth, with people enjoying own gainsand maintaining available resources for future development;Integrated: this calls for coherent coordination across traditional sectors in all spheres ofgovernment. It requires the Municipal five year plan (IDP) to establish coordination and maintainintegration at the municipal sphere; andRural Safety net: in responding to the continuous crisis facing rural people, social assistance hasbeen extended to all rural people and the ISRDP is also consolidating that effort.Key implications for the Lekwa Local MunicipalityIt is of critical importance that the LED strategy for the Municipality be tailored towards creating an enablingenvironment for its people. The LED strategy must comprise a “culture of collectives” with rural youth andyoung women coming together to work in developmental projects to increase their income and investmentsand subsequently gaining ownership of local businesses. This will require coherent coordination andinteraction among organizations in Lekwa Municipality.2.9 Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD)Land reform encompasses three distinct components, namely the restitution, tenure reform and theredistribution programmes. The redistribution programme, in turn, has different components, or 'subprogrammes',which includes:Agricultural Development: to make land available to people for agricultural purposes;Settlement: to provide people land for settlement purposes; andNon-agricultural enterprises: to provide people land for non-agricultural enterprises, for example eco-tourismprojects.LRAD has two distinct parts. Firstly, LRAD deals with the transfer of agricultural land to specific individuals orgroups. Secondly, LRAD deals with commonage projects, which aim to improve people with access tomunicipal and tribal land, primarily for grazing purposes.The strategic objectives of the sub-programmes include:Contributing to the redistribution of 30% of the country’s agricultural land over 15 years;31 | P a g e - D r a f t i n t e g r a t e d D e v e l o p m e n t P l a n 2 0 1 3 / 2 0 1 4