Local Goldmines: Unlocking Economic Potential in Every Street, Ward, Township, Suburb

Webinar Summary

The webinar, part of the fourth annual Local Government Conversations hosted by The Municipal Edge, focused on leveraging infrastructure investment and skills development to unlock local economic potential in South African municipalities. Moderated by Mr. Zolani SS Zonyane, the discussion featured insights from a diverse panel, addressing trade, investment, legal frameworks, practical municipal strategies, and asset management.
Below are the key points from each panelist:

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Mr. David Joubert, Municipal Manager, West Coast District Municipality

• West Coast District's Success: Highlighted the municipality's top ranking in the Ratings Africa Municipal Financial Sustainability Index and low unemployment rate (14.5% vs. Western Cape's 21%), driven by strategic infrastructure and economic initiatives.
• Strategic Focus: Emphasized collaboration with local municipalities, private sector, and academic institutions to align infrastructure, skills, and economic growth. Key sectors include agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, tourism, and renewable energy.
• Key Initiatives:
  • Infrastructure: Prioritizes bulk water upgrades, road infrastructure, and logistics networks to enable private sector job creation (e.g., shifting from potato to citrus farming to create 10x more jobs per hectare).
  • Skills Development: Collaborates with West Coast College, SETAs, and universities to align skills with economic priorities (e.g., artisans, youth, and contractor training via a skills development forum).
  • SMME and Local Procurement: Implements an Accelerated Local Economic Development Supply Chain Management Policy (ALEDSCMP), prioritizing local suppliers and supporting small businesses through incubation and mentorship.
  • Renewable Energy: Leverages green hydrogen and renewable energy projects to create jobs, with a focus on sustaining long-term skilled employment.
• Challenges: Persistent fragmentation in planning across government spheres, limited technical capacity for bankable infrastructure projects (e.g., a regional landfill site took since 1997 to complete), and misalignment between education and economic needs.
• Way Forward: Advocated for integrated district investment planning, stronger academic-private sector partnerships, deeper community involvement, and replicating best practices to turn local potential into shared prosperity.
• Response to Questions: Confirmed the economic model is intentional and practical, engaging industry via the West Coast Business Development Forum to address skills gaps (e.g., prioritizing artisanal skills over academic qualifications to reduce in-migration of semi-skilled labor).
• Closing Insight: Urged moving away from egocentric approaches, promoting collaboration, and replicating pockets of excellence to achieve impactful local governance.

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Ms. Vailet Kowayi, Senior Advisor: Municipal Trade and Investment, SALGA

• Role of SALGA in Trade and Investment: SALGA, representing 257 municipalities, is working to position municipalities as investment destinations by addressing their varying levels of economic maturity through a demand-driven approach.
• Municipal Investment Guidelines (2020): Developed to help municipalities create investment strategies or integrate investment elements into Local Economic Development (LED) strategies. Many municipalities lack dedicated investment strategies, relying solely on LED frameworks.
• Municipal Investment Profile Project: Assists municipalities in packaging their value propositions (e.g., competitive economic sectors, infrastructure, and accolades) to attract investors. Emphasized the importance of municipalities assessing their state of readiness before hosting investment conferences.
• Ease of Doing Business Study: Identified push and pull factors for business relocation (e.g., Clover's move from Northwest to KwaZulu-Natal). Key business needs include efficient service delivery, good infrastructure, and business retention strategies.
• Challenges: Highlighted lack of intergovernmental coordination, outdated bylaws, poor service delivery, infrastructure deficits, red tape, and capacity constraints among LED practitioners.
• Support for District Investment Agencies: SALGA supports district agencies by encouraging them to consolidate local municipal LED strategies into district-wide investment attraction plans, though funding shortages limit their effectiveness.
• Closing Insight: Stressed the need for municipalities to focus on enablers like transport, zoned land, communication systems, and safety to attract investment. Advocated for inclusive business engagement (from informal to large enterprises) to prevent disinvestment and foster collaboration with financiers.

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Dr. Nonhlanhla Ngcobo, Law Lecturer, North-West University

• Focus on Waste Pickers and Constitutional Mandates: Examined the informal economy, specifically waste pickers, emphasizing their role in local economic development (LED) as a constitutional mandate under Sections 152 and 24 of the South African Constitution.
• Constitutional Rights of Waste Pickers: Highlighted rights to equality, dignity, and freedom to choose a trade (Section 22). Argued that municipalities must respect, protect, promote, and fulfill these rights, rather than criminalizing waste pickers (e.g., during COVID-19 lockdowns in Tshwane, where waste pickers were deemed non-essential and faced arrests).
• Municipal Duties: Section 152 mandates developmental local government to address social and economic needs, while Section 24 ensures a safe and healthy environment, reinforcing municipalities' responsibility to support waste pickers who reduce waste pollution (saving municipalities ~R700 million annually).
• Bylaw Reforms Needed: Analyzed bylaws in Cape Town and Johannesburg, finding barriers like requirements for motor vehicle access to landfills, which exclude waste pickers. Called for reforms to align bylaws with constitutional protections.
• Human Rights Approach: Advocated for a human rights-based approach to waste picker policies, avoiding over-formalization that could impose tax burdens. Suggested municipalities provide resources like gloves to mitigate health risks from hazardous waste (e.g., broken glass, toxic materials).
• Response to Questions: Acknowledged the need for empirical studies to assess waste picker vulnerabilities (e.g., by race, gender, age) and emphasized that South Africa has sufficient internal solutions without needing to rely on foreign best practices.
• Closing Insight: Urged municipalities to recognize waste pickers as legitimate entrepreneurs contributing to environmental sustainability, fostering friendlier relations to unlock their economic potential.

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Mr. Philip de Bruin, Managing Director, Business Engineering

• Role of Systems in Municipal Management: Emphasized the importance of financial and planning systems to consolidate spatial, operational, and financial data for evidence-based decision-making.
• National Treasury Reforms: Noted recent focus on reforming municipal management systems to improve project feasibility and long-term sustainability, addressing delays in infrastructure projects (as mentioned by Mr. Joubert).
• Benefits of Systems: Systems with embedded analytics and business intelligence tools enable real-time reporting, prioritize high-impact projects, optimize resource allocation, and enhance accountability and transparency.
• Reducing Red Tape: Advocated for technology (e.g., SMS, WhatsApp, USSD) to simplify interactions between municipalities and entrepreneurs (e.g., street vendors, waste pickers), reducing bureaucratic barriers and fostering economic activity.
• Closing Insight: Stressed that user-friendly systems can act as catalysts for community economic engagement, aligning with the need to reduce egocentric approaches and support local entrepreneurs.

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Mr. Daniel Nolte, Head of Capacitation and Development, Centre for Municipal Asset Management (CMAM)

• Asset-based community development (ABCD): Proposed a bottom-up approach to asset management, contrasting with top-down asset-based community development models. ABCD involves communities in developing assets to drive socioeconomic and environmental benefits.
• Rural Development Model: Suggested forming community cooperatives in rural areas (e.g., Eastern Seaboard) to build terraces for water management, preventing soil erosion and flooding. Cited historical examples (e.g., Inca terraces in Peru, Chinese Loess Plateau).
• Economic Impact: Terracing projects could employ thousands (e.g., supported by Industrial Development Corporation grants for projects employing 1,000+ people), create jobs, and support agricultural and industrial growth.
• Collaboration: Emphasized aligning with traditional authorities, local governments, and national funding to implement ABCD, addressing siloed operations highlighted in the poll.
• Holistic Asset Management: Beyond infrastructure, asset management includes green infrastructure (e.g., rivers, fields) and socioeconomic assets, requiring community buy-in to ensure sustainability.
• Closing Insight: Stressed the need for collaborative, community-driven development to break silos and align with IDP regulations, ensuring municipalities work together for socioeconomic and environmental progress.

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Moderator: Mr. Zolani SS Zonyane, Editorial Director, Webinar Curator & Moderator, The Municipal Edge

• Framing the Discussion: Positioned the webinar as a platform to connect stakeholders, share practical solutions, and address local government challenges through infrastructure investment and skills development.
• Key Themes:
  • Integration: Highlighted the need for stronger intergovernmental relations to overcome siloed operations.
  • Prioritization: Stressed identifying and investing in local 'gold mines' (e.g., waste picking, data) to unlock economic potential.
  • Public-Private Collaboration: Advocated for partnerships during planning phases to ensure community-focused investments.
• Audience Engagement: Encouraged active participation through Q&A and polls, noting the importance of audience insights for shaping future webinars (e.g., planning for 2026, the fifth year of the series).
• Closing Remarks: Thanked panelists, audience, and sponsors (Ntiyiso Consulting Group, Business Engineering) for enabling thought-provoking discussions. Invited topic suggestions for 2026 and emphasized applying webinar learnings to local contexts.