L.E.D

Poverty, unemployment and inequalities within the deep rural municipality of Msinga are some of the issues that the Local Economic Development Strategy intends to address to mobilize the disadvantaged and marginalised local communities within Msinga Local Municipality. 

This Msinga Local Municipality Local Economic Development Strategy has been funded by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).The local Economic Development Unit aims to stimulate and support sustainable economic development at a local level. In order to achieve this and foster a sustainable local economy, a strategy needs to be put into place, which; creates an enabling environment for local economic development practices to thrive; ‘empowers local government and relevant and involved stakeholders’, ‘induces business development’; and supports employment creation and levers in private investment’. 

The need for an updated and improved LED Strategy is also due to changes experienced within the municipality since the previous Economic regeneration study of 2003. Of importance is also the Small towns Rehabilitation Programme and the latest Provincial Growth and Development Strategy of 2011 which have been extensively referred to. 

The aim of the LED Strategy is therefore to produce a comprehensive local economic development strategy that will highlight potential areas that the Msinga Local Municipality needs to focus investment to ensure that an enabling environment for the businesses and the community within the Msinga local Municipality is created in order to provide local economic growth and development, uplift the population of Msinga and target poverty alleviation. The strategy will also assist with providing information to be used in strategic decision making processes for local economic development. An important change has been the National Framework for LED in the Republic of South Africa formulated by the Department of Provincial and Local Government in 2006 which reiterates the aim of improving the capacity of local government to ‘facilitate rapid and effective business establishment and functioning’, particularly for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) and informal trading.

Key objectives are below; 

The objectives of the local economic development report are as follows 

• To assess legislation, policies and strategies relevant to local economic development in Msinga Local
• Municipality and alignment with government programmes,
• To assess the existing institutional capacity (municipal capacity assessment)regarding effective Local Economic
• Development implementation in Msinga,
• To undertake a desktop study to produce a situational analysis for the Msinga Local Municipality to
• understand the current dynamics with regard to the social, physical and environmental aspects,
• To undertake a comprehensive economic analysis of the municipality focussing on sector performance and
• market conditions,
• Undertake a S.W.O.T analysis,
• To develop a participatory approach to Local Economic Development in Msinga,
• To formulate a detailed economic vision, goals and strategies for LED in Msinga
• To formulate appropriate programmes and projects
• To formulate prioritization principles for projects identified
• To prioritize interventions/projects
• To formulate an implementation plan
• To provide a monitoring and evaluation tool for each project.