ABSTRACT

This chapter examines three community based Local Economic Development (LED) initiatives: namely Stutterheim, Seymour and Hertzog. In the limited field of applied LED in South Africa, the town of Stutterheim has gained the reputation of having the most well-developed, longstanding case of LED. There is little doubt that it was the first major example of LED in the post-apartheid era. The launching of the ‘Stutterheim Initiative’ as an applied LED strategy, through the formation of the Stutterheim Forum in 1990, resolved the latter issues and has attempted to address the other problems experienced in the town. Prior to 1990 however, the town of Stutterheim, in the ‘Border Corridor between Ciskei and Transkei, possessed few attributes which could distinguish it from most other small towns in the country. Stutterheim is situated in the approximate middle of the so-called ‘Border Corridor’ which separates the two former Homelands of Ciskei and Transkei.