An assessment of the status quo of LED Units and LED strategies in the Free State: Challenges and solutions

Abstract

Local Economic Development (LED) is key to any municipality as it brings together local residents, local businesses and government for the purpose of improving local economies. The purpose of LED is to improve the quality of life of its citizens by reducing unemployment and alleviating poverty. This paper examines the extent to which LED units and their strategies assist or improves the economic development of their local municipalities. LED approach to the economies of municipalities is a fairly new phenomenon with different theories and approaches to what it should look like and how it should function. In this scenario, Case studies of certain Municipalities’ LED strategies will be assessed in relation to the socio-economic status of those municipalities to assess the impact of those strategies into the economics of that municipality. The main idea in LED is that local economic development players are best positioned to mobilize local resources that otherwise may have remained untapped and had a large number of social benefits, local participation, local voice and sustainability of the local economy (Rodrigues-Pose and Tijmstra, 2009). However, LED units are not well embedded in municipal structures with limited functions and funding.