LITERATURE REVIEW ON LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Map 3.1 Map 3.1 Municipal boundaries of the 234 Local Municipalities (shaded areas show municipal boundary changes 2001-2011)
5.2 Review of the uMshwathi Local Municipality
5.2.1 uMshwathi Local Municipality: Overview and Situational Analysis
The subject of the study was uMshwathi Local Municipality (KZN221) in the uMgungundlovu District (DC22), about 120km northwest of Durban. Situated in the
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Midlands of the KwaZulu-Natal Province, the uMgungundlovu District Municipality consists of seven local municipalities: Msunduzi, uMshwathi, uMngeni, Mooi Mpofana, Mkhambathini, Impendle and Richmond. Common boundaries are shared with Ndwedwe, uMvoti, Mpofana, uMngeni, The Msunduzi, Mkhambathini and the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality. The headwaters of two rivers are located in uMshwathi Municipality: Mdloti River, Mdloti, having the Hazelmere Dam located on it, the primary source of water for the North Coast, and the Mvoti River, Mvoti. Two strategic dams are located partially within and close to the Municipal boundary, the Albert Falls and Nagle Dams (uMshwathi Local Municipality, 2012).
uMshwathi with its beautiful landscape is strategically located between the N2 on one side, and the N3 on the other side. It is important to appreciate the position of the uMshwathi Local Municipal area within the regional context so that comparisons and linkages with the broader economic community can be made. Map 5.1 shows uMshwathi favourably positioned between the major ports of Durban and Richards Bay, and at a 90km distance (along the R614, and 145km along the N3) from King Shaka International Airport and the Dube TradePort Corporation (DTPC) (uMshwathi Local Municipality, 2006). Research objectives 3 and 4 focused on the implementation of LED strategies in uMshwathi to respond to changing circumstances at local, national and international levels. At the meso level, Dube TradePort Corporation (DTPC) interventions are present to contribute to provincial and national microeconomic reform objectives, including research objectives 3 and 4, of: the creation of employment, the development of enterprise and partnerships, reduction of input costs, alleviation of rural poverty and the development of world class competitiveness and growth of exports. Personal communication with a journalist from The Mercury (15 October 2010), revealed that the FIFA World Cup 2010 requirements had accelerated the building of the Airport and the Dube TradePort Corporation (DTPC) and that no provincial strategy at the macro level had been put into place. This is supported by the scarcity of research information on the topic at the time. Thus the uMshwathi Local Municipality must look for opportunities linked to changing circumstances at the local, national and international levels and particularly to the advent of DTPC by the implementation of appropriate LED strategies, to generate local, national, and international partnerships between communities, businesses and government, to create joint business ventures and thus build up the local area.
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Map 5.1 Map of the Municipality of uMshwathi (KZN221), uMgungundlovu District (DC22). Source: Adapted from Municipality of uMshwathi, 2006.
According to Blakely and Leigh (2010) a new foundation for local economic development can be created with the evolving of development theories. In respect of the determinant of locality, they propose that there are locational development-inducing factors which embrace the quality of the local physical and social environment. They further suggest that this could signal changing opportunities for rural economic development. Thus the preservation of the area‘s picturesque scenery, country life style and concentration on the agricultural sector, could be exploited to provide a competitive advantage for uMshwathi‘s economic growth and that of the surrounding areas. This may be a case in point to use multiple frames to tell a story as suggested by the contemporary model of local economic development (Bingham and Mier, 1993), and meet research objective 1, more precisely, the development of LED strategies of diverse economic initiatives in an all-inclusive approach prioritizing job creation and poverty alleviation. Furthermore the theme of sustainability could be incorporated by the application of the relationship:
―Local and regional development = c x r‖
where, c = an area‘s capacity and r = its resources (Blakely and Leigh, 2010),
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with, economic, technological, social and political capacity, and, natural resources, location, human capital, transport, communication links, investment and entrepreneurial climate, and national and local government spending . The area‘s resources are explored in sections 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 with the focus being on the natural resources, namely on the land of uMshwathi and the people of uMshwathi, while sections 5.2.4 and 5.3.2 focus on the economic and political capacity of the province and the local municipality respectively.
In terms of the categories developed for the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework (MIIF) (referred to as municipal categories, utilised here purely for analytical purposes) uMshwathi is categorized as ―B4‖, local municipalities which are mainly rural with communal tenure and with, at most one or two small towns in their area (Municipal Demarcation Board, 2012). The uMgungundlovu District Municipality (UDM) population has been described as 45% rural and 55% urban, and was thus classified as urban, as more than 54% lived in an ‗urban centre‘ as defined in the 2001 census (WFA Pty Ltd and Graham Muller Associates, 2007).
uMshwathi Local Municipality, located in the north east quadrant of the uMgungundlovu District Municipality, is the largest municipality in the largest district in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). uMshwathi accounts for approximately 1924 km2 (1 km2 equals 100 ha) of land area in the district and has the second largest population, after Msunduzi which hosts Pietermaritzburg, the capital city of KwaZulu-Natal. uMshwathi‘s population of 106 370, according to Census 2011 (StatsSA, 2012), living in 23 732 households, constitutes approximately 11% of the total 1 017 763 people living in the uMgungundlovu District Municipality.
uMshwathi Local Municipality took form following the merger of: the former Transitional Local Councils of Dalton, Wartburg, Cool Air, New Hanover; the tribal areas of Emathulini under Inkosi Mthuli, kwaGcumisa under Inkosi Gcumisa, Mhlangandlovu under Inkosi Ntanzi, Ngubane Tribal Authority (eFaye) under Inkosi Ngubane, Masihambisane Tribal Authority under Inkosi Ndlovu and Nadi Tribal Authority under Inkosi Zondi. These areas were originally managed by the former Development Services Board (DSB) and these include Albert Falls, Harburg, Trust Feed and Crammond (uMshwathi Local Municipality, 2010) (Map 5.2).
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Map 5.2 Locality Map of the Municipality of uMshwathi, uMgungundlovu District