The West Rand Development Agency was investigated by assessing how fragmented policies impact on integrated approach to local economic development activities under the auspices of the WRDA, whether there is feasibility for an integrated approach to implementation of local economic development activities under the WRDA coordination, and establish as well as recommend intervention strategies to resolve challenges. The research methodology was based on a qualitative method approach, which includes literature review and interviewing different purposefully sampled role players in the discharging of mandate by the WRDA, namely municipal local economic development managers, West Rand Development Agency Board and Business sector representatives within the West Rand District Interpretation of results revealed lessons learnt, possibilities for an integrated approach to local economic development activities and intervention strategies recommended for the implementation of an integrated approach to the implementation of local economic development activities under the auspices of the West Rand Development Agency. West Rand District Municipality and its Development Agency could make a positive impact through an integrated approach in implementing LED in the district.

Until now, the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s (UNCDF) Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD) programme has not been presented within an explicit human rights framework. This is strange given that the human rights based approach to development (HRBAD) aims to ensure that all human beings can live their lives fully and with dignity. HRBAD is fundamentally about the healthy and full development of individuals and communities. In addition, one of human rights’ central concerns is that people have equal access to the benefits of society. Initiatives to realize human rights therefore give priority to the most marginalized - the poorest - in a society. It is those individuals who have most difficulty in securing the basics that are essential to living their lives with dignity. Women in all communities are disproportionately represented among the poor. Thus, human rights have gender equity as a central focus. Put another way, we are dealing with the feminization of poverty. We are dealing with the concept of equal access (to development). In short, we are dealing with those who need (and deserve) greater priority in access to infrastructure and supporting services in order to reach a point of equality.

This paper provides an overview of the efforts of successive Zambian governments to transform and institutionalise democratic local governance, and to come to grips with the socio-economic development challenges facing the country. It assesses the progress and challenges that governments are facing in their efforts to transform local government into democratic, developmental local governance.

The chairperson of the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on local government recently described local government in South Africa as “a chicken whose legs have been tied for too long”. In other words, even when the fetters that bind the chicken’s legs are loosed, it remains at a loss for what to do with its newfound freedom (Tsenoli 2007). This descriptive analogy ostensibly refers to the failure of local government to harness its newfound power in post-apartheid South Africa and to claim its rightful position as the driver of development at the local level, and instigator of bottom-up growth and progress, which is meant to shape and transform society in the new South Africa.

The Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) was established in 1994, coinciding with rapid moves towards decentralisation at that time, especially in Commonwealth Africa. It uniquely brings together national associations of local government and individual councils, ministries responsible for local government, and training and research institutes with an interest in local government, on a common platform. This reflects an understanding that local government needs effective central government and vice versa if decentralisation is to be truly successful, and that research, training and practice need to be brought together in a constructive and creative way. CLGF’s developmental work can be divided into three main categories: Promotion and advocacy of local democracy and good governance, Exchange of experience and Capacity building.This article provides a brief overview of the activities and projects which CLGF has underway in respect of these objectives. It will be complemented by more detailed papers on specific programmes and projects in this and future issues of the Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance.