IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v31y2016i1-2p109-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The contested trajectory of applied local economic development in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Etienne Nel
  • Christian M Rogerson

Abstract

Local economic development is one of the key development strategies pursued by localities in South Africa. Local economic development is a core local government mandate and one which is notionally conceptualised as allowing for the pursuit of both socio-economic redress and economic development. Despite the significant support put into applied local economic development for nearly 20 years, results have been modest and concerns about a potential over-focus on pro-poor local economic development, at the expense of simultaneously working with the private sector on pro-market interventions, have been identified as a stumbling block to the potential success of this developmental approach. This paper charts the development of local economic development policy and practise in the country before focussing on the findings of a detailed analysis of the local economic development strategies adopted by all of the country’s 278 local authorities. Findings show that most local governments are choosing a narrow band of pro-poor interventions to focus their attention on, with little support, except in the larger centres, being given to more market-focussed interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Etienne Nel & Christian M Rogerson, 2016. "The contested trajectory of applied local economic development in South Africa," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 31(1-2), pages 109-123, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:31:y:2016:i:1-2:p:109-123
    DOI: 10.1177/0269094215623729
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094215623729
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0269094215623729?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Scott & Eric Pawson, 1999. "Local Development Initiatives And Unemployment In New Zealand," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 90(2), pages 184-195, May.
    2. Fabrizio Barca & Philip McCann & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2012. "The Case For Regional Development Intervention: Place‐Based Versus Place‐Neutral Approaches," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 134-152, February.
    3. Ivan Turok, 2010. "South Africa's Challenge of Shared Prosperity," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 25(4), pages 265-268, June.
    4. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 2009. "Regional Development and the Competitive Dynamics of Global Production Networks: An East Asian Perspective," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 325-351.
    5. Etienne Nel, 2001. "Local Economic Development: A Review and Assessment of its Current Status in South Africa," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(7), pages 1003-1024, June.
    6. Christian Rogerson, 2010. "Local economic development in South Africa: Strategic challenges," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 481-495.
    7. Bhorat, Haroon & Hirsch, Alan & Kanbur, Ravi & Ncube, Mthuli, 2014. "Economic Policy in South Africa: Past, Present, and Future," Working Papers 180150, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zeleke Worku, 2019. "Regulatory Obstacles and Small, Micro and Medium-sized Enterprises," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 9(6), pages 44-50.
    2. Sebeka Richard Plaatjie & Sebeka Richard Plaatjie, 2018. "Local Economic Development: A Test for Relevance in South Africa," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 10(5), pages 255-263.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian M Rogerson & Etienne Nel, 2016. "Planning for local economic development in spaces of despair: Key trends in South Africa’s ‘distressed areas’," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 31(1-2), pages 124-141, February.
    2. Rogerson Christian M., 2014. "Reframing place-based economic development in South Africa: the example of local economic development," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 24(24), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Etienne Nel & Christian M Rogerson, 2016. "Re-engaging with spatial economic development: The recent experience of regional and local economic development in South Africa," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 31(1-2), pages 3-8, February.
    4. Simona Iammarino, 2018. "FDI and regional development policy," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(3), pages 157-183, December.
    5. Lawrence Faith & Rogerson Christian M., 2018. "Local economic development agencies and place-based development: Evidence from South Africa," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 41(41), pages 29-43, September.
    6. Jonas A. Akudugu, 2018. "Institutionalising local economic development practice in Ghana," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 33(4), pages 405-420, June.
    7. Akpeko Agbevade, 2020. "Implementation dynamics of local economic development: Comparative empirical experiences from Ghana’s local governance system," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(6), pages 609-624, September.
    8. Themba Lukhele & Thanyani Madzivhandila, 2018. "The dilemma between the pro-market and the pro-poor local economic development approaches in the democratic South Africa: Theoretical perspective," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 33(8), pages 877-888, December.
    9. Hay Anette & Hay Johnnie, 2017. "Indicators of post-productivism in South Africa’s “platteland”: A second home case study of Rosendal, Eastern Free State," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 37(37), pages 35-49, September.
    10. Lee Pugalis & Gill Bentley, 2014. "Place-based development strategies: Possibilities, dilemmas and ongoing debates," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 29(4-5), pages 561-572, June.
    11. Mark D. Partridge & Dan S. Rickman & M. Rose Olfert & Ying Tan, 2015. "When Spatial Equilibrium Fails: Is Place-Based Policy Second Best?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1303-1325, August.
    12. Jason P. Brown & Dayton M. Lambert & Raymond J. G. M. Florax, 2013. "The Birth, Death, and Persistence of Firms: Creative Destruction and the Spatial Distribution of U.S. Manufacturing Establishments, 2000–2006," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 89(3), pages 203-226, July.
    13. Lutho Mbekeni & Andrew Phiri, 2019. "Can the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) protect the purchasing power of citizens? A new look at Fisher’s hypothesis," Working Papers 1906, Department of Economics, Nelson Mandela University, revised Sep 2019.
    14. Barone, Guglielmo & David, Francesco & de Blasio, Guido, 2016. "Boulevard of broken dreams. The end of EU funding (1997: Abruzzi, Italy)," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 31-38.
    15. Resce, Giuliano & Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina, 2022. "Predicting agri-food quality across space: A Machine Learning model for the acknowledgment of Geographical Indications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    16. Gong, Qiang & Wang, Kun & Fan, Xingli & Fu, Xiaowen & Xiao, Yi-bin, 2018. "International trade drivers and freight network analysis - The case of the Chinese air cargo sector," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 253-262.
    17. Basco, Rodrigo & Stough, Roger & Suwala, Lech, 2021. "Family Business and Regional Development," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 232284.
    18. Francesco pagliacci & Margherita Russo, 2017. "Earthquake hazard in Italy Cluster analysis of socio-economic data to inform place-based policy measures," Department of Economics 0110, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    19. Riccardo Crescenzi & Marco Di Cataldo & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2016. "Government Quality And The Economic Returns Of Transport Infrastructure Investment In European Regions," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 555-582, September.
    20. Tsvetkova, Alexandra, 2016. "Do diversity, creativity and localized competition promote endogenous firm formation? Evidence from a high-tech US industry," MPRA Paper 72349, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:31:y:2016:i:1-2:p:109-123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.