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The national strategic framework for local economic development (LED) emerged in the post-1994 era to address complex development challenges in South Africa. In this regard, municipal councils have a constitutional developmental mandate and statutory obligations to design and implement LED strategies in their areas of jurisdiction. However, the successful implementation of these strategies is constrained by both broader systemic challenges and specific municipal constraints. Especially resource-constrained local municipalities, such as the JB Marks Local Municipality (JBMLM), struggle to effectively implement their LED strategies. This, in turn, hampers the achievement of national development targets in terms of poverty alleviation, job creation, small business development, and economic growth. The objective of the study is to investigate the nature and scope of systemic and institutional challenges associated with the design and implementation of LED strategies. Following a qualitative case study design, data collection and source triangulation were used to investigate the nature and scope of these challenges. Data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews with officials purportedly sampled. The results of this investigation showed that there are issues with the current LED strategy implementation, mainly due to poor coordination, misalignment, and limited cooperation and participation of key stakeholders. Identification and analysis of LED-related challenges will allow local municipalities to design appropriate mitigation responses to systemic challenges and address institutional issues that hamper the successful implementation of LED strategies.

With the rapid development of social economy, the deterioration of environment has become more and more serious; it is urgent to find a balance between economic development and environmental protection. Therefore, enterprises are appealed to invest in environmental protection, and local municipalities are appealed to supervise the environmental behaviors of enterprises, while central government plays a role of regulation. In order to study the preconditions for a better environmental strategy combination of local municipalities and enterprises, an evolutionary game theory was first constructed in this paper, then the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) of local municipalities and enterprises under different scenarios was examined, and finally a simulation was used to test the results of the analysis. The results indicate that central government’s regulation has influence on the strategies chosen by local municipalities and enterprises, the larger the degree of central government’s incentives are, the more possible local municipalities and enterprises would choose environment-friendly strategies; and the intensity of central government's regulation, the cost and benefits of local municipalities’ supervision, and the cost and benefits of enterprises' environmental investment are the key influence factors.

This article aims at exploring the role of Local Economic Development (LED) in reshaping the economy of South Africa through the promotion of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs)in local government. This paper is built on the post 1994 South African government concept of grass roots initiatives and community participation. With local government being viewed as a sphere of government, this meant that it is allocated a range of roles and responsibilities with respect to economic and social development. Therefore, the objective of the paper is to examine how the LED has contributed to reshape the grass root economy of South Africa. The research design used in this article was a mixed method approach. In the qualitative method, data were collected by means of an extensive review of government and public documents, academic books and articles. In terms of the quantitative method, SMME entrepreneurs in the Mbombela Local Municipality of the Mpumalanga Province,South Africa (SA) completed self-administered questionnaires. The findings point to the fact that South Africa needs to make the SMMEs environment conducive and favourable for business purposes. LED does contribute positively towards the growth of the economy of South Africa.

Water and sanitation are core for the growth and development of communities. Yet, South African local municipalities are often unable to sustainably deliver safe water and basic sanitation for all. Drawing on perspectives of ecological economics, this study analysed the sustainability of water and sanitation systems in rural communities of the Lepelle Nkumpi Local Municipality. Mixed research approach was used to collect the data from 657 household and institutional respondents. The study found that households used water for multi-purposes including consumptive, productive and domestic, but existing facilities are in deplorable condition. Pollution arising from agrochemicals, waste systems, mining, sewerage, and industrial effluence significantly affected water systems in the communities. Bridging demand–supply gaps require initiatives like bulk water supply and implementation of the free basic water policy in underprivileged areas. Tariffs should either be waived or adjusted for extremely poor households. Waste management initiatives, like capacity building, public education, investments, and facility upgrade, could help avert spread of waterborne infections and improve the resident’s health.

Section 195(b) of South Africa’s Constitution calls for the efficient use of resources in public administration, while the White Paper on Local Government similarly emphasizes the efficient provision of basic services such as refuse collection and water. Despite these policy commitments, South African municipalities continue to be characterized by financial mismanagement and poor service delivery. In light of the limited empirical evidence on this issue, this study pursues two objectives. First, it estimates the levels of cost inefficiency in four local municipalities within the Frances Baard District from 2006 to 2023. Second, it determines how cost inefficiencies affect service delivery, focusing on water and refuse collection. Using a stochastic frontier analysis, several key results are confirmed. First, on average, the four municipalities are found to have spent 17.23% above the minimum cost required to deliver existing services. Second, service delivery is found to have been 23% lower than its potential. Third, operating costs and contracted services are found to have been key drivers of wasteful expenditure. Lastly, cost inefficiencies are found to have culminated in poor service delivery. Against this background, municipalities are urged to consider cutting non-essential operational spending such as entertainment and travel allowances, coupled with improved accountability on contracted services.

A critical focus within the growing scholarship around tourism development and planning is that of tourism and local economic development (LED) planning. This paper investigates the nexus of tourism and LED planning in South Africa. Arguably, South Africa provides fertile territory for exploring this relationship because of the national importance of tourism for the economy as a whole and of a policy commitment by national government to the support of sub-national development planning. Evidence is presented from the Overstrand Local Municipality in the Western Cape, one of many small towns where tourism is a critical local economic driver. The evidence shows that tourism expansion can contribute to enhanced growth of the local economy as well as job creation for local communities. This said, the existing ownership structure of the local tourism economy is massively weighted to white entrepreneurs such that the local tourism economy cannot be described as inclusive.

This paper seeks to look at the impact and effect of corruption in the local municipalities in South Africa by indicating that corruption is rampant and being perpetrated with impunity despite anti-corruption laws for holding corrupt people accountable. It highlights the severe impact of corruption on the basic municipal services, the socio-economic conditions of the people, and the society at large. The literature review method was employed to systematically examined and tackled the issues at hand. The findings of the study highlighted that widespread corruption across various sectors hindered the provision of essential services to those in need, including the poor and vulnerable individuals who should have been the primary beneficiaries. The paper showed that due to corruption and maladministration, most of the local municipalities have been rendered bankrupt. The paper strongly stressed the need for consequences and holding perpetrators accountable.

The aim of this study is to assess the technical efficiency of the use of investment resources allocated to municipalities in Cameroon. The data used come from the Special Inter-municipal Equipment and Intervention Fund (FEICOM), the National Participatory Development Programme (PNDP) and the Public Investment Budget (BIP), for the period 2010 to 2020, and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The results shows that the BIP counter has the highest efficiency score, at 1 for the whole period, while the scores of the FEICOM and PNDP windows are 0.896 and 0.857 respectively. Secondly, the pooling of resources from the different windows increases the efficiency score obtained, an average of 0.96 for the whole period, even if the new scores remain lower than those of BIP. These results, which highlight the good performance of the BIP window, justified by the significant learning effects from which this window benefits.

PurposeThis paper aims to present relevant literature review to build up the case pertaining to the impact of traditional leadership in the demarcation of municipal boundaries in South Africa. Municipal boundary demarcation remains a major contentious issue during the process of establishing municipalities. Little or no attention has been paid to the significance of traditional leadership in resolving issues around boundary demarcation between municipalities, hence this paper.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopted case study design. Data were collected from secondary sources and the contents were analyzed for this research purpose.FindingsThis paper put boundary in municipal context as a result of spatial reconfiguration process. It also discussed the impactful roles of traditional leadership as an institution involved in municipal (re)demarcation processes.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper focusses on the contemporary roles that traditional leadership is at vantage position to play in the process of municipal boundary demarcation. Therefore, the paper concludes that traditional leadership could resolve issue of ethnicity as a causal factor mitigating the redemarcation of municipal boundaries.Originality/valueIt contributes to existing knowledge by providing information on the roles of traditional leadership that could complement the resolution of the ethnic complexities arising from municipal (re)demarcation processes.

Service delivery in South African municipal areas differs widely across jurisdictional boundaries. The paper illustrates the potential of geo-spatial mapping to quantify and map service delivery inequality at local municipal level in order to differentiate policy interventions. Data from a national 2007 South African survey were analysed to assess absolute levels and relative inequality of service delivery at district and local municipality levels. Not surprisingly, the results showed a wide variation in absolute service delivery levels when comparing richer urban districts to poorer rural ones. Service delivery inequality, however, was low in the richest urban districts, as well as the poorest rural ones. Conversely, service delivery inequality was highest in the more recently industrialised districts that contained both urban and rural municipalities. The scatter distribution of service delivery inequality versus absolute levels of service delivery appears to largely support Kuznets' (1955) inverse U theory of inequality. Further analysis and discussion of the findings, however, illustrates that urban planners in both rich and poor South African municipalities are confronted with a number of dilemmas.