Pictured at the gala dinner were, ltr, SRD Task Team co-leader Dr Sibongile Pefile of the CSIR, team member, Canny Geyer and co-leader Prof Nic Olivier, UP. The Mayor of Giyani, Mr M Ramaipadi, delivering the keynote address at the launch gala dinner. Prof Nic Olivier, facilitating at the stakeholders' workshop held after the launch.

The SERA Task Team on Sustainable Rural Development (SRD) - alongside the Greater Giyani Local Municipality - officially launched the Greater Giyani Natural Resource Development Programme in Giyani, Limpopo in April this year.

This event was the culmination of a four-year intervention by SERA of assisting the Greater Giyani Local Municipality in planning, coordinating, managing, monitoring and evaluating local economic development initiatives to establish commercially viable projects through active community leadership and participation.

The population of the Giyani Municipal district is estimated at a quarter of the that of the Mopani district. About 48 percent of the adult population is economically active and a vast majority live in rural areas. An estimated at 40 percent of the total female population in the area head up households that on average consist of five people. Between 1996 and 2001, the Municipality experienced an economic growth rate of just over 1 percent, and the projection is that this will increase slightly between 2001 and 2010.

With an unemployment rate of about 55 percent, mostly women, the public sector is the biggest employer in the area. The other economic sectors providing employment are agriculture, construction and manufacturing. Close to 90 percent of the employed earn less than R18 000 per annum, with an illiteracy rate of just over 21 percent of the total population.

The fact that the Municipality does not posses an Integrated Natural Resource Management Strategy hampers its ability to give the community guidance on which projects to pursue. There is a need for updated information on all development projects within the Municipal boundaries to identify needs, group similar projects and direct new projects to existing projects to share learning.

The aim of the programme, which will focus on the utilisation of natural resources in the Greater Giyani Local Municipal area, is to enable local and district municipalities to integrate initiatives in day-to-day management, development planning and implementation processes. This will increase capacity and allow the Municipality to play a pro-active role in the reduction of poverty. The eventual aim is to develop a staffing structure to manage and monitor the programme.

The launch was celebrated with a gala dinner. In her keynote address the Mayor of Giyani, the Honourable M A Ramaipadi, thanked SERA for its efforts and confirmed the Municipality's commitment to the broad based economic empowerment of local communities and adopting an integrated approach to sustainable development in the region. "This programme will also link entrepreneurs to markets to help bridge the divide between the first and the second economy", she said.

For more information contact Canny Geyer on +27 12 420 4516.