ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the examination of community based Local Economic Development (LED) examples, focuses on three authority based LED cases, namely Kei Road, the Independent Development Trust project and East London. In an attempt to promote household self-sufficiency and small-scale farming, a community-gardens project was launched by Eyethu. One of the oldest projects supported by Eyethu is that of a women’s bulk-buying co-operative designed to reduce costs to households in the community. The rural village of Kei Road is one of the many centres which, in the apartheid era, became a focal point of international media attention and condemnation. Kei Road is a small rural service centre near Bisho in the Eastern Cape. Its economy revolves round three general dealers, a hotel, a small stockyard and a railway station. In 1993, attention re-focussed on Kei Road when refugee numbers were temporarily swelled by people fleeing from a faction fight in the neighbouring village of Kwarini.
