An Analysis of Infrastructure Provision and Local Economic Development Policy

Youth unemployment is a petrifying reality on a large scale in the township areas and exacerbated by limited economic opportunities, which warrants responsive youth development strategies. Often entrepreneurial skills are overlooked and instead the focus is based on transferring generic skills in order for the youth to find employment. The Cape Flats suburb in the Western Cape is subject to economic strife and therefore it is imperative to include a platform to develop entrepreneurial thinking through the pursuance of dreams/goal setting when attempting to address youth development. The transfer of entrepreneurial skills in a township context is imperative to support local economic development strategies and policy making. The research design adopted a quantitative methodology approach employing a purposive sampling technique for data collection of individuals residing in the Cape Flats area. The piloting of the research instrument was statistically tested to ensure validity and reliability prior to commencement of the main study. The study involved a cross sectional design and a sample of 650 participants. The study utilized SPSS for the quantitative analysis and involved descriptive statistical analyses, correlation and regression statistical application. With the current economic outlook plagued by the high unemployment rates, particularly amongst the youth, there is economic policy uncertainty and growing disillusionment. The lack of economic opportunities that the youth are subjected to prompts them to access scarce resources out of desperation, which are often actions which are not consistent with the legal framework of South Africa. Socio-economic factors such as gang affiliation, substance abuse, prostitution and teenage pregnancy is often a knock-on effect when acting out of desperation to access scarce economic opportunities. This study presents a normative stage conceptual model of youth development using entrepreneurship as a means of increasing access to economic opportunities. The model focuses on pursuing dreams/goal setting as a start to aim at entrepreneurial outcomes. Developing the youth in this way increases their entrepreneurial skills and makes them more marketable in obtaining opportunities. Stepwise regression was used to determine the influence of the independent variables – role models, limited economic opportunities, entrepreneurial skills and youth development on the dependent variable – pursuance of dreams/goal setting. Role models, entrepreneurial skills and limited economic opportunities collectively explained 8% of the variance in the dependent variable (r = .08, p < .00), pursuance of dreams/goal setting. The study provides a normative stage conceptual model that suggests the inclusion of entrepreneurship into policy making and local economic development strategies in township development on the Cape Flats. The study has practical implications for contemporary skills development and training of the youth. The findings of this study have a direct influence on policy development and implementation of local economic development with a specific focus on job creation and greater economic participation. Local economic development strategies must take into account the influence of entrepreneurship and in particular, interventions focused on entrepreneurial thinking. Policy makers must not merely focus on generic skills transformation but must include private sector partners for more holistic skills transformation. Greater emphasis in this regard must be given to public private partnerships. Local economic development policy must take into account current and future skills that will be required in diverse industries in order to equip individuals sufficiently.

Local economic development provides an excellent policy context to examine Australian intergovernmental relations. In Australia, policies impacting on economic development have traditionally been the preserve of Commonwealth and state governments. Economic restructuring, particularly since the early 1980s, has seen the rise of local government as a more active participant in promoting economic development at the local level. Individual local councils that establish economic development policies place themselves in a scenario that is outside the statutory parameters of their legislative frameworks and often well beyond their resource capacity. This article presents the findings of research into the economic development policies of three Australian metropolitan local governments during the 1980s and 1990s. This research informs the debate surrounding the capacity of individual local governments that seek to establish local economic development policies. It also discusses the constraints experienced by these local governments as they sought to work with the other spheres of government to improve economic conditions and create new job opportunities for local residents.

Local Economic Development

A NEW PARADIGM FOR LED? Local Economic Development (LED) is a discipline still coming into its own, with competing strands of argumentation still generating conflict. At the root of the conflict is debate over whether traditional types of local strategies a) are working, and b) are generating ‘pro-poor’ economic development, or simply more ‘uneven development’. The latter term refers to a structured, systematic mode of capital accumulation at one pole, and the ‘development of underdevelopment’ at another. Although it was once associated with ‘dependency theory’, it is a far more subtle conceptual approach to understanding ingrained poverty and inequality (Bond, 1998, 1999, 2000a, 2000b). The past two decades have, after all, witnessed extraordinary pressure on local authorities, especially formal municipalities, to become more entrepreneurial. These pressures have accompanied the overall slow-down in growth in the international economy that began during the late 1970s, and reflect shifting power relations. In short, urban entrepreneurialism became a feature of virtually all LED strategies as competition for investment intensified. The term ‘smokestack chasing’ emerged to characterise the most ambitious attempts to ‘place-market’ a given municipality. The tide has probably turned on this epoch, which was called the period of the ‘Washington Consensus’ because it entailed rigid nation-state adherence to ‘neoliberal’ (free-market) dictates, often enforced by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the discipline of international financial markets. These included:  government budget cuts, increases in user-fees for public services and privatisation of state enterprises;  the lifting of price controls, subsidies and any other distortions of market forces;  liberalisation of currency controls and currency devaluation;  higher interest rates and deregulation of local finance;  removal of import barriers (trade tariffs and quotas); and  an emphasis on promotion of exports, above all other economic priorities.

If a local government receives unconditional funding to design and implement a local development policy, what does it do? This quasi-experimental situation occurred in 2018 when the Swedish government started to allocate 70 million SEK per year to 39 municipalities in the most sparsely populated rural north of the country. The funds' purpose was to support local development initiatives, but they were unconditional and came without specific requirements. Against this backdrop, we analyse how local governments define and address problems related to local economic development, the solutions they develop to address these problems, and the analytical and normative frameworks that guide their decisions. We contrast the identified frameworks with the contemporary literature on place-based policy and planning to determine whether, and to what extent, local economic development policy in rural Sweden reflects the idea that policy and planning should take place-based conditions into account.

The concept of Local Economic Development (LED) is an analytical tool that can be used to describe and measure economic conditions in a region. The territory in question may be administrative territory or region / region of particular business / commodity development, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are part of the most strategic economic sector, concerning the livelihood of the people and is an important pillar in supporting and moving the joints of the economy in many countries .. SMEs play several important roles in Indonesia, one of them important players In Local Economic Development (LED) and community development. The purpose of this study is directed to determine the factors - factors that affect Local Economic Development with SMEs as the base sector in the city of Medan. The research method used in this research is Quantitative Descriptive Research Method. Data collection is done by using secondary and primary data. Then the analysis used to test the research hypothesis that has been determined by using the sample data obtained. The Inferential Statistics Method used in the analysis of this research data is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Descriptive result of this research is there are three variables have the average score of each - each variable is smaller than the middle threshold score 9. The three latent variables referred to include: social capital, socio-economic characteristics, and economic development policy However, when viewed From educational and skill perspectives, labor market and geographical characteristics greater than the middle threshold score 9. The results of this study are social capital, education and expertise, social characteristics, labor market, economic development policy and local culture are six factors Have a positive and significant impact on the succession of local economic development program of Medan city.

Economic development has been uneven within many states, often resulting in wide geographic disparities in unemployment. Using county-level panel data, this study examines variation in unemployment rates within Georgia to determine the potential role that state and local economic development policy may play in reducing unemployment in underdeveloped areas. Thus, a particular concern of the study is whether metropolitan areas and central cities have different unemployment rates, once other characteristics are accounted for. The findings of the study do not support urban areas, or, alternatively, very rural areas, as inherently having different unemployment rates. Thus, state economic development policy need not focus on enhancing one type of area over the other to reduce the state unemployment rate. However, the findings suggest the need for increasing high school attainment rates, providing affordable day-care, and addressing the high unemployment among African-Americans.

The paper dials with the results of studying the main components of a process of planning local economic development of the amalgamated territorial communities. Author focuses on current issues facing local governments in implementing an effective policy of local economic development. It substantiates the necessity of forming a Local Economic Development Working Group and points the requirements for its members. Author argues the necessity to diversify a Local Economic Development Working Group by criterion of belonging its members to various categories of local economic development stakeholders. The arguments for involving business and community to the planning process of amalgamated territorial communities’ local economic development identified. The importance to develop an Economic Profile of amalgamated territorial communities as an analytical document defined as well as double meaning of the document for an amalgamated territorial community. The paper defines potential users of economics profile of amalgamated territorial community. Author proposes the structure of an analytical document and determines the requirements for the content of its five sections. Priority tools for activating local economic development of amalgamated territorial communities identified. The general tendencies of choosing the priority instruments of local economic development of amalgamated territorial communities by the members of the working group noted. There are arguments concerning expediency of introducing the priority instruments of local economic development of amalgamated territorial communities from the point of view of the data of the economic profile, in particular there are arguments concerning cooperative movement in agriculture. The priority instrument of local economic development for amalgamated territorial communities with significant recreational potential and poorly equipped tourist infrastructure is determined. Thus, in the process of planning local economic development of the amalgamated territorial communities it is necessary to focus on the following important components: creation Local Economic Development Working Group, drawing up an Economic Profile, choosing the priority instruments of local economic development and justification expediency for their implementation.

Sustainable Local Economic Development in Croatia and the Role of Social Capital

This article addresses several issues related to values and the evaluation of local economic development policies. First, it focuses on the issue of goals in relation to the evaluation of local policies: What is one trying to achieve with local economic development policies? Second, it addresses connections between how goals are defined, what analysts choose to evaluate, and the results of evaluations. Finally, the article suggests an alternative approach to evaluating local development policies, incorporating an explicit identification of values and a broader notion of what is meant by local economic development.

Local economic development policy and practice has evolved significantly in the post-apartheid era in South Africa. This article reviews recent local economic development policy and legal developments, particularly with respect to the enhanced development requirements and expectations being placed on local governments in that country. The factors encouraging this focus on 'development local government' are analysed, key policies and laws outlined, associated funding and planning strategies such as that of Integrated Development Planning are discussed and the overall process is critiqued. Quite clearly, significant and timely changes have been embarked on, but greater levels of support will clearly be needed by the smaller local authorities before widespread application of the new laws and policies can be anticipated.

WAG) -A Review of Local Economic and Employment Development Policy Approaches in OECD countries‖.The review has intended to provide WAG with a set of policy options and learning models to consider in the design of future development policies and strategies.

Financial inclusion is currently on the political agenda of many governments and international institutions as an unavoidable objective of territorial cohesion and economic development programs. It is also central to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For their part, the role of credit unions as agents of local economic development and their commitment to the provision of financial services in regions subject to unfavorable demographic and economic stress has been verified by various studies. However, this article examines the contribution of credit unions to the processes of financial inclusion and economic development in Poland under a regional analysis approach. For this purpose, spatial analysis method is applied to a sample of 3,556 credit union bank branches representative of all Polish voivodeships to determine the distribution of these branches. Then, a model based on the research of Di Pietro (2016) and Coccorese and Shaffer (2018) is estimated to assess the impact of credit unions on the endogenous economic development of the territory. The obtained results suggest that credit unions have a significant influence on the local economic development of Polish voivodeships and contribute to the financial inclusion in these regions.

Local economic development (LED) research and policy grapple with the informal economy and township transformation. While most current thinking centres on firms, this paper argues that non-firm worlds of work and their spatiality are not adequately understood. Representations of the places where poor people work remain abstract and incomplete. The paper reports on a survey of 320 low-income Sowetan residents and in-depth interviews with 20 workers about their work roles in the urban space economy. The findings, which show poor workers engaging with diverse sectors and locations in complex ways, challenge the dominant spatial narratives about isolated poor residential areas. Poor workers deliberately create their own social capital in work realms. This being the case, a more finely tuned conceptualisation of these workers and their roles in urban space is essential to sharpen LED discussions so that policies can be based more on real rather than imagined spatiality.

Local Economic Development (LED) policies and programmes are becoming a well established part of national and local government. The evaluation of programmes and projects draws upon a long series of examples which stretch back to regional policy. The problem with the current 'state of the art' is that it concentrates upon cost per job, albeit with more sophisticated discrimination of the effects. This paper suggests the benefits of placing evaluation in a broader context of performance measures which (a) reflects more fully the objectives of the policy and (b) allows greater insights into comparative effectiveness and thus influences the reallocation of resources.