05 Dec 2019

District councils have been implored to develop strategic programmes aimed at empowering communities through Local Economic Drive (LED) initiative, which aims at improving the economic standard of people in rural villages.

Presenting at a four-day Kweneng District councillors orientation workshop in Molepolole on December 4, deputy director of Local Governance and Development Planning, Ms Ntotang Swapo emphasised the need for stakeholders engagement through strategic planning to develop communities.

She said it was important to harmonise the relationship between councillors, officials and the community for common understanding of developmental processes as far as LED was concerned.

The reason behind the LED initiative, she said, was to make full use of resources available within the community and come up with strategic ways that could benefit communities in various ways.

Ms Swapo highlighted that LED would help stimulate the local economic growth and diversification, enhance and sustain national economic diversification, creation of decent jobs and reduce the level of poverty among vulnerable segments of the community.

She said development agenda implementation was in the past constrained by lack of capacity and technical expertise during NDP 9 planning period. The initiative, she said, started with pilot interventions in four local authorities and it was rolled out to six districts during the 2016/2017 fiscal year.

Later, she explained, five districts benefited in 2017/18 through the support of Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) and the support of UNDP’s national policy frameworks on decentralisation.

Meanwhile, Kweneng District Council’s principal economic planner, Mr Letswalo Moesi said a decision was reached to start the implementation process in one area, being Mogoditshane.

“Since we have over 58 villages across the district, we made a decision to divert our focus to one area, make local economic assessment that will guide on how to go about the entire process,” said Mr Moesi.

Councillor for Gabane North East, Mr Ofentse Mareme emphasised the need to train councillors on council operations and processes. Ends