Msukaligwa Local Municipality 2008/09 - Co-operative Governance ...

• Agricultural refinement• Industrial development.• Tourism and accommodation.SAREGENERATING AND MARKETING LOCAL ECONOMIESThe challenge of “regenerating local economies after a period of economic decline and stagnation has been the impetus of many local economic developmentprograms both nationally and internationally. In South Africa, we are currently experiencing the uneven impact of globalization and government’s macroeconomicpolicies on our municipalities. Sectors that have benefited from state protectionism in the past are now being exposed to competition on both thedomestic and international markets.The issue is whether municipalities passively accept the decline, or proactively try to ‘manage’ the decline and / or attempt to regenerate the local economy.Local and international experience shows that ‘regeneration strategies’ can have various positive spin-offs:- Restructuring of the local economy makes the municipality less dependent on a declining sector- Public expenditure can leverage in add additional private sector funds through investment.- Proactive decision making can contribute to the ‘management’ of decline through channeling of assets and resources into more productive uses orlocalities; and the- Social impact of the decline can be addressed through structured programs.In essence, LED is about communities continually upgrading their business environments to improve their competitiveness, retain jobs and improve incomes.Local communities respond to their LED needs in many ways. There are a wide variety of LED initiatives including:• ensuring the local business environment is conducive to major businesses and sectors in the area• supporting small and medium sized businesses (SME’s)• encouraging new enterprise• attracting investment from elsewhere (within the country and internationally)• investing in physical (hard) infrastructure• investing in soft Infrastructure (including human resource development, institutional support systems and regulatory issues)• supporting the growth of particular clusters of businesses• targeting particular parts of the city for regeneration or growth (spatial targeting)• survivalist (often informal) businesses• targeting certain disadvantaged groupsSMME development so farMany local strategies focus on SMME development and though there has been significant growth in the number of black owned enterprises, thisapproach has largely disappointed those who hoped it was the answer to the unemployment problem.Much can be attributed to the failure to distinguish between the rather different needs of SME’s and micro-enterprises. All too often local initiatives mean yetanother block-maker, or are donor dependent, or are outsourcing initiatives replacing jobs in big enterprises. Deliberate clustering around local advantages isMsukaligwa Municipality: Integrated Development Plan 2007/2012 245