Engaging with communities
Opinion piece: The role of the municipality in securing economic development outcomes.
By Janine Espin
Government’ s Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment( B-BBEE) regulations stipulate that a percentage of business turnover be spent on socio-economic development. Many of these programmes are designed and implemented without engaging with the relevant municipality. This is a mistake. Municipalities are involved across communities and their inputs can add tremendous value, helping to optimise outcomes.
As an economic development specialist with many years’ experience working across a number of South African communities, Economic Development Solutions( EDS) has gained insight into effective engagement strategies that can be applied to drive productive interactions with municipalities.
In an ideal world …
In an ideal world, impact studies would identify how the establishment and operation of the business might impact the environment, municipal infrastructure and services( for example roads and water use), and the community. The business’ s socioeconomic development plan would then be designed with inputs from the municipality and other authorities— specifically with insight into the municipality’ s Integrated Development Plan( IDP), which spells out the needs and ambitions of the community. Finally, a well-managed roll-out of the programme would add value to the community, with careful monitoring providing evidence that the effort was successful. This is often not the reality.
Barriers to interaction
Many municipalities in South Africa are under-resourced and under enormous pressure to deliver. They do not have sufficient staff and lack the fundamental skills, budgets, and tools to deliver on their mandates, namely managing the infrastructure and services required by the community. For many of these municipalities, collaborating aidc. org. za
It would be a mistake not to seek out the inputs of municipalities when attempting to build trust.
12 Water Sewage & Effluent July / August 2018