The key components of what makes successful local economic development (LED) is the focus of a regional conference run by CLGF, UNDP and other partners in southern Africa which opens today. The conference will run from 17-18 March 2014 in Lilongwe, Malawi hosted by the Malawi Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development; it will run alongside the 2014 meeting of the SADC Local Government Ministers’ Forum.

Participants will include CLGF Board members Cllr Thabo Manyoni (South Africa), Cllr Rev Mpho Moruakgomo (Botswana) and Hon Emmerine Kambanshi (Zambia) and around 100 other leading players in local government in the South African Development Community (SADC) region, including ministers with responsibility for local government, ministry officials, council leaders and town clerks, local government association presidents and secretary-generals and representatives of development and other partners in the region.

The conference will try to gain a shared understanding of the meaning, principles and scope of LED and local government’s role in LED to inform country and regional policies and practices.  It will look at how regional collaboration can enhance LED as an approach to development, and how local government’s role in LED can be better reflected in SADC’s agenda.

CLGF Secretary-General Carl Wright, who will address the opening session, said, “The important role of local government in delivering key services and promoting local economic development was endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their recent meeting in Sri Lanka when they also endorsed the declaration of 2014 as the Year of Developmental Local Government”. 

“Local government has a central role in development including through promoting LED, contributing to poverty reduction, better services, food security, economic growth, wealth creation and employment. This conference will build on the valuable work CLGF has been doing on LED in Southern Africa and the wider Commonwealth,” he said.

The conference is part of a series of meetings in Malawi being hosted by the Hon Mrs Rachel Mazombwe Zulu MP, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Malawi and organised  by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Malawi, CLGF, UNDP and partners in the region. The outcomes will be presented to SADC Ministers of Local Government and Presidents of Local Government Associations. 

CLGF’s programme in Southern Africa is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). It builds on earlier work by CLGF and its partners, including UNDP and UNCDF, on LED in the region and CLGF’s Cardiff consensus for local economic development, the outcomes of the 2011 Commonwealth Local Government Conference endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Government. 

CLGF Southern Africa