NEDLAC TO CONSIDER FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

1 August 1996

Nedlac's Development Chamber is to convene a workshop in early September to consider final recommendations for a national framework for local economic development (LED).

Nedlac Executive Director Jayendra Naidoo says draft proposals are currently being circulated to stakeholders for comment, and responses are expected to be received by the Development Chamber by the end of August.

The need for an LED framework was put on the agenda of the Development Chamber when it became clear that a multitude of local-development structures- sponsored by both local government, government line-function departments and community organisations-were being established in an uncoordinated approach, he says.

"Nedlac's involvement in this process began with the convening of a special session of the chamber in June. Here it was agreed by all participants that there is a crucial need for flexibility to be built into national-framework guidelines for establishing local development structures," Naidoo says. Work-in-progress proposals for the establishment of LED structures at community and local-government levels to provide the basis for the promotion of local development in terms of local needs and priorities were recently completed by the Development Chamber.

These proposals include:

• Establishing broadly representative community-level development structures-funded by government-which would determine and promote their own needs and priorities.
• Establishing local-government-level development structures to function at the broad local level and aim to bring together key roleplayers to identify and initiate programmes and projects.
• Appointing community-development facilitators to ensure coordination between the community and government development structures. Their primary task would be to provide technical and administrative support to community structures.
• Providing technical, financial and staff support to local authorities through a provincial development office established by the provincial administration.

Naidoo says it was agreed that the proposals be further developed in consultation with as broad a range of stakeholders as possible.

"We also felt it was important to draw local government-as a key roleplayer in local development-into the process," he says. "The proposals are currently being circulated to stakeholders and we expect their responses by the end of this month, in time for the workshop in September."