Supporting Local Economic Development in Post-Apartheid South Africa

South Africa's apartheid era has left a bitter legacy of retarded economic development. Local Economic Development has been identified by the South African government as a key strategy through which issues of development and, more importantly, poverty alleviation can be addressed by local governments. This paper reviews current Local Economic Development policy in South Africa, before proceeding to an examination and analysis of the impact of the primary government support mechanism designed to promote such development initiatives, namely the Local Economic Development Fund. Whilst such support is of vital importance, far greater levels of intervention will be needed to fully address the massive scale of current local development needs.     

Spatial economic development in South Africa: an overview and evaluation of the platinum spatial development initiative

The Platinum Spatial Development Initiative (Platinum SDI), located in the North West province of South Africa, is examined in this article. The article commences with a historical synopsis of industrial policy and regional industrial development policy in South Africa. Thereafter the trade and industrial policies of the North West Provincial Government are discussed in the contexts of its economic development strategies ‘North West 2001’ from 1997, and the ‘North West Economic Development and Industrialisation Strategy’ from 2002. Various arguments for and against the viability of the Platinum SDI are put forward.     

Poverty,human rights law and socio-economic realities in South Africa†

South Africa is a nation of immense variety. It has rich cultural diversity, an enviable climate and an abundance of natural resources. However, it is also a nation with vast economic disparities and a highly unequal distribution of income. Hence, in spite of abundant resources and a seemingly vibrant economy, South Africa still faces an enormous poverty problem that is fundamentally no different from that of other African countries. As in many other African countries this problem of poverty is compounded by the HIV/AIDS pandemic; by high levels of unemployment; by low levels of education; and by a number of other factors. Today, South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world and a Bill of Rights that contains an array of justiciable socio-economic rights. The South African government has also attempted to alleviate poverty and mitigate its effects through progressively developing and expanding a social welfare system and other programmes such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy. The purpose of this article is to analyse the role of human rights (specifically the Bill of Rights in the Constitution) and government efforts to alleviate poverty (through certain programmes and service delivery) in the face of adverse socio-economic realities in South Africa.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth by J oan R obinson
Economic Development and the Price Level by G eoffrey M aynard .
South Africa 1906–1961: The Price of Magnanimity by N icholas M anseroh .
A Tudor Book of Rates. Edited by T. S. W illan .
Money, Trade and Economic Growth. By H. G. J ohnson .
THE SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS The Quarterly Journal of the Economic Society of South Africa     

中国经济法外部性问题概论

经济法作为一种公共物品存在着外部性问题。经济法外部性问题的产生源于经济法的特征和本位,依照新制度经济学关于内部化外部性问题的方法,经济法外部性问题的解决可以从中得到有用的启发和借鉴,从而有助于中国经济法的发展和完善。     

The Mawhood seminar: International perspective on rural local government: Summary and comment

Professor Philip Mawhood of the Development Administrative Group (University of Birmingham) and the Department of Politics (University of Exeter) visited South Africa during March/April 1991. He presented a closing seminar, hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, on 25 April 1991. This review provides a summary of Professor Maw‐hood's presentation, and comment is given on some critical aspects regarding the future of rural authorities and rural local government under a new dispensation in South Africa.     

Node selection for the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme in South Africa

Various programmes and strategies in South Africa aim to reduce poverty. The Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) is a sustained campaign against rural poverty and underdevelopment, implemented in 13 nodes selected on account of their poverty, lack of infrastructure and capacity, and provincial representivity. Using a hierarchy of development regions, data from the 2001 Census and a core-periphery model, this paper evaluates the location of the 13 nodes to determine whether the municipalities in these nodes have high levels of poverty and are in need of development. The findings are that although most of these municipalities have high poverty levels, the nodes also include municipalities with relatively high levels of development. There are also 17 municipalities in South Africa with very low levels of development that are not included as nodes in the ISRDP. Policy-makers need to take cognisance of the macro pattern of spatial economic development.     

Book Reviews

Book reviews in this article:
BEENHAKKER, H. L. Capital Investment Planning for Management and Engineering . J. C. du Plessis
GHOSH, Santikumar. Development Performance and Stagflation A. L. Müller
KELLEY, Allen C. and WILLIAMSON, Jeffrey G. Lessons from Japanese Development - An Analytical Economic History. R. Lubinsky
LEFTWICH, Adrian (Ed.) South Africa: Economic Growth and Political Change Gavin Maasdorp
MCQUEEN, Matthew. The Economics of Development: Problems and Policies H. Zarenda
BEENHAKKER, H. L. Capital Investment Planning for Management and Engineering .     

加快推进我国沿边地区经济特区的建设

2010年中央从深入实施西部大开发战略和维护边疆地区的长治久安出发,先后做出了在我国新疆喀什和霍尔果斯、内蒙古满洲里、云南瑞丽、广西东兴设立经济特区的重大决策。在我国沿边地区举办经济特区,具有自身的优势和条件,同时具有特殊性和挑战性,需要赋予更加特殊的政策和体制。本文就此进行探讨并提出政策建议。     

我国区域金融发展的特点与经济增长关系——以广西壮族自治区为例

随着经济的逐渐发展,我国的经济区域划分从开始的"三分法"即东、中、西部的划分逐渐演变到东、中、西和东北部四大经济区域(十一五期间)。在美国金融危机影响下,区域经济的协调发展引起了人们对区域经济发展的关注,2009年我国相继出台了十几个经济区域的规划,资金流引导实物流是发展的总体趋势,十二五的重要目标就是在新的经济区域规划下如何实现区域经济的协调发展。     

Job Creation and Destruction in South Africa

Analysts of the South African labour market have mainly used household surveys to analyse the labour market. It has been more difficult to explore the labour demand of firms, as a result of limited data availability. We use the Quarterly Employment Statistics survey, an enterprise survey conducted by Statistics South Africa, to explore how South African firms create and destroy jobs, thereby shedding light on many of the policy questions that are relevant in a high unemployment society like South Africa. We find that job creation and destruction rates are similar to those found in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries. There is little evidence that labour legislation creates rigidities that prevent firms from hiring or firing workers. We also find that larger firms are better net creators of jobs than small firms and that net job creation rates are negative in manufacturing. Our research has important policy implications – particularly for the South African National Planning Commission's 2030 plan, in which new jobs are envisaged to come mainly from small‐ and medium‐sized firms. Our research suggests that this scenario is not likely without changes to policy or legislation.     

关于无锡实现现代化的探讨

本文论述了在经济全球化的冲击下 ,以“独立自主、扩大开放”方针为指导 ,制定国家经济安全战略的几点思考 ,以维护国家的经济利益 ,保障有中国特色的社会主义现代化事业的顺利进行。     

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT: ECONOMIC SPIN-OFFS AND LINKAGES

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a concerted effort by Africa's political leaders to develop a comprehensive and integrated strategic policy framework to raise current levels of socio‐economic development and reduce high levels of poverty across the African continent. The NEPAD framework recognises the need for African countries to pool their resources together in order to enhance regional development and economic integration. To this end, NEPAD emphasises capacity building and also seeks to solicit and disburse funds towards infrastructural development programmes and poverty alleviation projects, among others. South Africa's involvement with the rest of Africa has increased significantly since 1994. Trade exports, foreign direct investment (both market and resource‐seeking in nature) and public‐private partnerships have mushroomed in many parts of the continent. Many South African firms are providing the financial impetus for the infrastructural development and rehabilitation of African economies. This paper discusses salient economic linkages between South Africa and the rest of Africa within the framework of NEPAD. South Africa is the economic hub of sub‐Saharan Africa (and indeed of the African continent), with significant agricultural, manufacturing and services capacity. South African firms have invested in the development of a number of sectors in the rest of Africa, taking advantage of the new investment incentives offered by the NEPAD framework. The target sectors range from mining, the hospitality industry, engineering and construction, finance to telecommunications. These investments and economic involvements are crucial to the development of African countries and the relevant sectors that are important for the realisation of some of the objectives of NEPAD.     

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON SMALL,MEDIUM AND LARGE ENTERPRISES1

Based on the Bureau of Economic Research (BER's) 2005 HIV/AIDS survey, this paper provides a snapshot view of the nature and the extent of the impact of HIV/AIDS on companies of different sizes in South Africa, as well as their response to the epidemic. Whereas the focus of most of the previous workplace surveys has been on “evaluating workplace responses”, the present study also considers the economic impact of HIV/AIDS. This study provides evidence of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the largest sample of small, medium and large companies in South Africa to date. The survey results suggest that employer responses are strongly linked to company size, with the majority of medium and large companies indicating that they have an HIV/AIDS policy in place and small companies having done little in the way of action against the epidemic.     

South Africa’s Economic Transformation Since 1994: What Influence has the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) Had?

When the African National Congress (ANC) became the democratic government of South Africa in 1994, it faced the challenge of transforming the economy. How this was to be done, however, revolved around two divergent views of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which forms the underlying ideology or glue that binds together the Tripartite Alliance comprising the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the largest workers’ union in the country. Transformation could be achieved either radically through measures such as nationalisation where political control would be transposed into economic power, or via a more liberal route involving the promotion of macro-economic development and the growth of company earnings. This article investigates how the ANC government has sought to bring about the much-needed transformation by providing summary analyses of the following macro-economic policies: the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative - South Africa (ASGISA), the New Growth Path (NGP) and the National Development Plan (NDP). Evidence suggests that while the NDR promised radical results, the economic transformation that has been taking place in South Africa since 1994 has been driven largely by neo-liberal principles. This is in contrast to what the ANC claims in various policy documents and what various scholars, such as Jeffery (2010:5) and Venter (2012), have also claimed. As South Africa’s economic fortunes have declined in recent years in the face of mounting external pressures and internal policy uncertainty, this deviation from the original ideology and plan is causing significant discord in the country.     

Is small beautiful? Understanding the contribution of small businesses in township tourism to economic development

The increased importance attached by policy-makers to the anticipated developmental effects of tourism in developing countries has been insufficiently examined by academic researchers, particularly in the context of the contribution of small firms in urban areas. This deficiency is addressed by providing a review of existing research followed by an analysis of interviews with 90 tourism business located within and outside the townships of Langa and Imizamo Yethu, Cape Town, South Africa. The findings reveal tensions between the different actors involved in township tourism. While the involvement of small, locally owned, businesses is beneficial, it is limited by conflicts of interest, lack of trust, limited social networks and little attachment to the township locality. The discussion highlights the complexity of tourism's role in economic development, which has significant implications for local policy-makers.     

Linking IDC finance to structural transformation and inclusivity in post-apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

The need for structural transformation and inclusivity in South Africa is urgent, given poor economic growth, employment and equality outcomes. This article examines the role of South Africa’s main industrial finance institution – the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) – in providing finance for structural transformation and inclusive economic growth post-apartheid. We find that the IDC’s funding has been concentrated in capital-intensive upstream sectors of the economy, with limited concessional finance to facilitate meaningful entry of SMEs into high-value and labour-absorptive downstream sectors. The IDC’s funding model (in being a self-sustainable institution) is a significant constraining factor in this regard. Furthermore, the lack of a purposeful integrated industrial policy strategy which directs investments clearly means that IDC’s funding priorities are not clearly defined.     

FURTHER DOWN MEMORY LANE: A NOTE REFLECTING ON THE MISSING FOUR

A review article by Botha included short biographies of past presidents of The Economic Society of South Africa from its inception in 1925-1963. The review article discussed 17 of the 21 presidents serving between 1925 and 1963. This note supplements the earlier article by providing some information on the four presidents not covered in the earlier article.     

Measuring our competitiveness - a critical examination of the IMD and WEF competitiveness indicators for South Africa

This article examines the competitiveness indicators that are produced by the highly influential World Economic Forum (WEF) and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), specifically in respect of South Africa. Neither provides a clear and persuasive guide as to South Africa's overall competitiveness ranking, nor how this has altered over time. The problem resides principally in the assessment of technological capacities and the contribution that technology makes to overall competitiveness. The IMD and the WEF approaches to technology diverge significantly, but both are inadequate. As a consequence, there is a substantial discrepancy between the two as regards South Africa's current overall competitive ness ranking. Neither individually, nor collectively, are these competitiveness indicators - as they are currently constituted - useful as a guide to policy.